


Wanderlust

by PorcelainAlice



Series: Isle!Ben AU [3]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Fluff, I lied I went back and did some editing, I refuse to edit something this self-indulgent so it's probably a little wonky gomen, M/M, Mentions of incest, Oral Sex, Self-Indulgent, Selfcest, TKAAR!Ben has spent his whole life being told to go fuck himself, Unreliable Narrator, but not really, how could he ever pass up this dazzling opportunity, not a lot admittedly but I padded out some wimpy parts, two very traumatized versions of the same dude bone each other theraputically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 10:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21506302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcelainAlice/pseuds/PorcelainAlice
Summary: I was looking back to see if you were looking back to see if I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me
Relationships: Ben/Ben, Isle!Ben/Canon!Ben
Series: Isle!Ben AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327121
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	Wanderlust

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Slight spoilers for TKAAR. This really isn't TKAAR canon but it does reference some things that are going to happen in TKAAR canon so be prepared for that. Nothing goes into detail, though.
> 
> Belle's favorite poem -- the one Canon!Ben recites -- is The Wanderlust by Robert William Service. The other poem mentioned is Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright! By William Blake.

The Isle of the Lost never sleeps, which is ironic, given what it’s made out of. But some of the people who live here do, and there are a few spare hours between midnight and dawn where things are ever-so-slightly quieter. If there was ever a time to do something loud and reckless, hopefully taking advantage of the confusion of people suddenly jolting awake, it’s now.

“Loud and reckless” is a pretty good descriptor for this entire plan, but hey. It’s not like they could sneak out onto the barges or something. Plenty of people have tried and failed. No amount of stealth is going to get them off the isle.

This, though. This just might.

The Den is as close to empty as it ever is, just Ben, Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos. Better not to have the whole gang here, if the machine blows. The others can come pull them out of the wreckage and watch over them until the barrier works it’s magic, but if they’re all caught in an explosion then pretty much everyone is screwed.

… Well. Maybe not Hadie, but the rest of them, for sure.

It’s not a foolproof plan. If the machine does work, they’ll be on a clock immediately. The gang can be rounded up and at the Den in like fifteen minutes, and somebody is sure to grab Ben’s parents and bring them, too, when they see the torches lit, but that’s fifteen minutes Ben and the others have to stand here and guard the machine in case someone else notices the gaping hole in the barrier.

Ben has never been one to pass up an opportunity to point out a worst-case scenario or to offer a few last-minute words of encouragement, but there’s not much point to either, right now. Everyone already knows what kind of risks they’re taking with this. If there was a safer way, they would have thought of it by now.

“Okay,” Carlos says, quiet in the still air of the Den. He’s kneeling on the floor in front of the mechanical monstrosity he’s created. Evie, across from him, triple-checks the same wires she’s been fiddling with for the last few weeks, then slowly lowers her hands into her lap, twisting nervously with her skirt.

“Okay?” Mal asks, eyebrow rising.

When Carlos nods, Jay rises from his place on the couch and makes his way over, completing their circle. “Okay.”

“... Okay,” Evie echoes. As one, she and Carlos reach for the lever. As one, she and Carlos pause.

Ben rests his hand on top of both of theirs. “Okay,” He says. There’s not much else to say.

They push.

A flash of heat, and then--

The world goes white.

Ben wakes up in heaven. 

The lights are so bright he can barely open his eyes, and the bed he’s on feels sturdy, and significantly softer than his own mattress at home. Aches he’s had for months, for years, are suddenly gone, replaced with an odd but not unpleasant heaviness in his limbs. His head feels light and fuzzy, like it’s stuffed full of cotton.

 _Well_ , Ben thinks. _How about that._ It wasn’t where he thought he’d end up. Ben always figured he was destined for the pit, but maybe the old man is forgiving after all. Hell, maybe Ben can put in a good word for the others, too, if he’s up here for real.

When he finally manages to pry his eyelids open, his head throbs all the way down his spine, sharp white light stabbing at his eyes. When he turns to try and look around, everything kind of blurs and swirls like Mal’s watered-down paints. Colors and light bleed together. Ben closes his eyes again.

… Okay, so this probably isn't heaven. If it was, he wouldn't feel like he’d spent the last night going shot for shot with Jace Badun. With that realization comes the immediate question of _then where is he_ , and with _that_ comes a stab of urgency.

Ben pries his eyes open again, grits his teeth through the wave of pain and nausea, and takes slow breaths until the blurred canvas around him solidifies into shapes. 

He can't see much, because everything goes foggy and strange when he tries to turn his head too fast, but he can make out his peripheral. He’s on a bed in a room with pale blue walls and white ceiling. There are light wood cabinets and a sink all along one wall. Black leather chairs polished to a shine. Two doors.

As he goes to raise a hand to his head -- the way everything keeps swimming and shifting around him, he must have cracked it open or something, given himself a concussion -- he realizes his hand and wrist are wrapped in an odd black… Glove? Thing? He wiggles his fingers idly, and is surprised to feel a stab of pain. It’s distant, though, removed from him, so it’s hard to tell the severity of whatever injury he has.

Oh. He’s drugged.

The stab of urgency gets stronger.

Ben checks his other arm for strange gloves, and, finding none, wedges his elbow against the bed to force himself upright. The room bleeds. His stomach rolls warningly, but Ben breathes through the nausea and pain until they’ve passed.

Mostly sitting up now, Ben can take proper stock of his surroundings. The bed he’s in has wooden railings along the sides, kind of like a crib, and the sheets and blanket feel waxy and strange. Nothing he could use as a weapon without breaking something, which he doesn't have the strength to do right now, and none of his usual stash are on him. He’s been stripped and dressed in a pale blue dress-thing that feels about as flimsy as paper and hangs open in the back. Something about that seems almost familiar, but hell if he can guess from where just now.

If he strains his ears, Ben can just barely almost hear people wandering past the room he’s in.

Okay.

His legs tremble when he puts his weight on them. Moving to stand has another wave of wrongness crawling through him, in his head and in his belly, sliding down his spine. He braces his uninjured hand on one of the railings on the bed and holds on until he stops feeling like he might pass out. 

As soon as he can, Be starts to explore. He has to move carefully, shuffling his feet in slow and measured movements across the hardwood floor to stave off the pain and nausea, but the room he’s in isn’t huge, so there’s that, at least. He gets the cabinets open, but some pawing around reveals nothing helpful; boxes of blue gloves, strange contraptions with parts that light up. 

If Carlos or Reza were here, they could probably fashion a taser out of this crap, but although Ben’s grandfather was a brilliant inventor (according to his mother, at least) Ben himself never learned much more than the very basics of machinery. 

The most useful thing Ben finds in the cabinets is a container of ballpoint pens. It isn't much, but Ben tucks one behind his ear anyway. Then he makes his shuffling way back to the bed to dig through the odd pouches hanging off the railings on the sides.

There’s a clipboard in one of them, but the writing is small and Ben can’t focus enough to read it. Something about that, though -- a clipboard at the foot of a bed, and cabinets with blue gloves -- strikes the same distant memory insisting this is familiar, like he’s heard of something like this before. More digging turns up a strange remote with only one button on it. Ben places it carefully on the bed.

There’s a window on the other side of the bed, which he approaches and opens the curtains to without much hope. He ends up squinting muzzily into the harsh sunlight, surprised that even compared to the bright lights in the room the sun could still hurt his eyes.

There’s nowhere on the Isle where the sun shines this brightly. Ben carefully side steps that thought.

When his eyes adjust, he peers out at the unfamiliar… garden? Down below. It’s empty of people, which is a small blessing, and seems to stretch on in most directions, so he could theoretically run through and find some way out of wherever he is, but that would require climbing out of the window.

If he were his usual self, it would be doable. Risky -- he seems to be four, maybe five stories up -- but he could probably pull it off. The side of the building looks like stone brick when he peers down, there should be plenty of hand and footholds for him, and on a sunny day like this nothing should be wet or slippery.

But he’s having a hard time standing upright, and peering out the window gives him a rush of vertigo so sharp and dizzying he needs to grab onto the bed frame to stay standing, which has a stab of pain lacing up his injured arm. He’s drugged, he’s hurt, he’s in an unfamiliar place with no idea how he got here, and the most likely escape route isn’t an option.

 _Breathe, Ben,_ He tells himself. _Panicking never did you any good._

He breathes. Closes the curtains. Turns away.

The only other door to the room is wide open, and leads into a bathroom with shiny blue and gold tiles all over the place, and a polished-perfect mirror over the sink big enough Ben can see his entire upper body and most of the room behind him. The mirror has lights around it too, for some reason. Because apparently all these other lights just aren't bright enough.

In his reflection, Ben looks… Not as bad as he expected, actually. His hair is a mess and his eyes look bloodshot and blown from the drugs, but he isn't as pale and wane as he was kind of thinking he might be, so he must not have been here _too_ long… Wherever here is. That means that wherever his gang ended up, they're all probably in the same boat as he is right now, or else maybe they’re already regrouping and trying to track him down.

Either way, Ben can’t stay here. He needs to find his gang and figure out what happened.

He’s barely had time to start weighing the pros and cons of opening the door leading out of the room and making a run for it before he hears something that tries to prick at his consciousness. In the strange, hazy headspace he’s in, fighting tooth and nail against the drugs, it takes him a second to identify the sound, and another second to wonder why it’s important. Once he does, he’s scrambling for the ballpoint pen, and backing up farther into the bathroom.

Someone just opened the door.

Ben can hear them -- sure footsteps, rustling fabric. He knows the exact second they realise he isn’t in the bed by the way their steps falter. Light feet, probably a woman. Ben’s odds of winning this fight just got halved.

He tucks himself as far into the corner as he can. Her footsteps pick back up, heading for the bathroom. He didn’t pay close enough attention to the angle of the door -- he was distracted and panicking and fucked himself over, what else is new, well done, Benjamin -- so he’s going on blind hope that she can’t see him from the doorway. 

If she can’t, and she comes close enough, he can blitz her. Probably. Admittedly, he isn’t sure of his aim right now, with the world all smeared and bleeding into itself every time he moves, but it’ll be fine. He thinks.

The footsteps draw closer. 

Closer.

“Your Maje--” 

Ben rounds the corner and pounces.

The woman he just tackled yelps as he forces her to the floor, pen at her neck. The same distant sense of Deja Vu prickles at him when he looks at her; the strange clothes she’s wearing, the tag around her neck. It’s a uniform of some kind, but he has more important things to worry about right now.

He clamps a hand over her mouth (his wrist aches) but the door to the room is wide open and she screamed loud enough to be heard when he pinned her. He can see a carpeted hallway outside.

With no other option immediately available, Ben lets go of her mouth and grabs her by the arm instead, dragging her to her feet with him as he scrambles to stand. (Whatever’s coming, he’ll face it.)

The pen stays pressed against her neck the whole way. He’s never severed someone’s carotid artery before, but he knows where it is. He got an A in Vulnerable Anatomy. 

The woman is whimpering something, but whatever she’s saying doesn’t make sense. She keeps calling him “sir” and apologizing, asking him to let her go. She has the act down pat; Ben almost believes she really is panicked and helpless, but he’s fallen for that trick too many times to believe her. (She’s crying, he can see the tears on her cheeks. His stomach rolls. Ignore it, there’s no way she isn’t faking.)

When figures fill the doorway, Ben pulls her more firmly in front of himself, and tries to squint through the wobbly, blurry rush around him. One of his legs shakes worryingly, but he plants his feet as firmly as he can. The woman in his arms whimpers.

Taking a hostage must have been a good idea, because nobody tries to rush him. When two of the blurry figures in the doorway step forward, saying “Easy, now” and “Son, let her--” Ben presses the tip of the pen harder against her neck and growls.

“Get out of my way,” He says, faltering when he hears how badly his words are slurring. Damnit, his tongue feels like balled-up rag shoved in his mouth. He swallows thickly, glares through the haze. “Get out of my way, or you can scrub her blood off the floor.”

The woman makes a high, terrified whimper. She’s still begging faintly. Maybe she really is as afraid as she’s pretending to be.

Then again, that makes sense. Without the barrier, if he kills her, she might actually stay dead.

Without the barrier. Holy shit.

Ben is pulled out of that thought when another body in the doorway answers him. 

“You don’t need to hurt her. I’m sure you must be confused, but you aren’t in any danger.”

It isn’t the steady calm in the voice that makes Ben falter, but the pitch-perfect, bizarrely familiar sound of it.

The other people clumped in the door shuffle out of the way, and a man steps into the room.

It takes a second for Ben’s eyes to focus, but once they do… Ben can’t understand what he’s looking at.

“Everyone,” The man says, “Please, give him space.” When the gathered people start to protest, he holds up a hand, commanding and relaxed. “Please, we’ll be fine.” Wide, calm eyes, hazel-green like he sees so often, bore steadily into Ben from across the room. 

“If they leave, will you let her go, please? And I swear I’ll explain everything.”

“What the _fuck_?!” The woman, who’d started to relax, goes tense and shaking again.

The man wearing Ben’s face doesn’t even flinch.

“You can explain everything right now. What the hell is going on? _Where’s my crew_?”

 _(Please, please, please,_ the woman begs.)

The man raises his hands, empty and non-threatening, first to Ben and then to the still-gathered crowd when they shuffle and shift. “I don’t know the answer to that last one,” He says, steady. “You’re the only person we’ve found so far.” He takes a moment to give the woman in Ben’s clutches a reassuring nod. “You fell through a crack in the sky. You fractured your arm and received a concussion in the landing. I have the Fairy Godmother and Yen Sid investigating what happened, and how to get you back home. I know how that sounds, and how frightening this must all be for you, but please, stand down. We are not your enemies.”

Ben is barely listening. The words wash over him, ridiculous and impossible and possibly the weirdest lie he’s ever heard, but he isn’t paying as much attention to them as he should be.

The man’s hair is different. The same color, same texture, but his is shorter on top, and doesn’t look like it’s shaved down in the back. He has the same thick eyebrows, the same jaw and chin and bump of a nose. The welt in the corner of his mouth is smaller, like he doesn’t worry his lip as often as Ben does, but it’s still there.

They’re the same height, the same build. Ben can tell from here that his hands are softer, less calloused, but he has the same almost-crooked pinkies Ben got from his dad.

Not quite exactly the same, but similar enough that Ben feels like he’s looking in a warped mirror. Barely different, but different enough that Ben is left wondering why an impostor wouldn’t just commit to the full image.

The machine went off, a rush of heat and light. Ben fell out of a crack in the sky.

This is _insane._

Ben doesn’t know what his face looks like right now (only he does, he’s looking right at it, this isn’t _possible_ ) but whatever expression he’s wearing has the man stepping closer into the room, still relaxed and non-threatening. He opens his mouth, hesitates. Says, _“My wanderlust has lured me to the seven lonely seas_. _”_ Ben feels frozen-still, all limbs locked. _‘Has dumped me on the tailing-piles of darth. My wanderlust has haled me from the morris chairs of ease; has hurled me to the ends of all the earth.”_

His fingers on the pen feel weak and trembly. This isn’t happening, this isn’t _real_.

His doppelganger takes another step closer. “You’ve come a long way,” He says. “I know how terrified you must be. Please, let’s sit and talk.”

“You’re me?” Ben asks, stupid and amazed and, okay, terrified. Absolutely terrified.

A nod. A gentle, steady gaze from familiar green eyes. “I am.”

Wanderlust, indeed. 

Ben lets the woman go.

They don’t actually talk all that much, at first. The people in the doorway try to flood the room, but his other self talks them down, and Ben shuffles his way back to the bed to sit, his head throbbing. 

“Where am I?” Is the first, most obvious question, once he takes a few deep breaths and spends a second compartmentalizing. His doppleganger doesn’t seem surprised by it in the slightest. 

“Noble Heart Clinic,” He answers immediately. “Auradon City, France.” 

“France?” Ben says, very quietly. 

Now The Other One looks confused. “You aren’t from here? I mean -- the other here, the France from… your world.”

Ben goes to shake his head, gets a spike of pain for his trouble, and shrugs instead. “No, man. I’m from the Isle.”

For a second, Ben thinks maybe the Isle doesn’t exist here -- maybe this is a world where enough people voted _no_ \-- but the look on The Other One’s face says otherwise.

Another thought occurs to him. “Who’s there, here? In this world, I mean. Who got sent there?”

“Um,” The Other One falters. “The -- well, the villains.” Before Ben can point out how completely unhelpful that is, The Other One starts listing, “I don’t have every single name memorized, but I know of most of the more famous ones. Gaston, Maleficent, The Evil Queen Grimhilde, Jafar --”

“That’s plenty,” Ben cuts him off. “I thought maybe it was switched.”

The Other One’s eyes light up in understanding. Ben wonders if his do that. “A mirrorverse, you mean? Where everything is opposite?” 

“Yeah. But if the villains are still villains, then our worlds themselves can’t be that different. Just our lives.”

Frowning in thought, The Other One digs his teeth into his bottom lip, working that same welt that Ben himself is chewing on. “A butterfly effect, maybe?” He muses. “Two nearly identical realities, with only one small difference that makes larger changes as time goes on?”

“I mean, my parents got sent to the isle, so I don’t know how small of a difference it was…”

Ah, so that’s what it feels like to be on the receiving end of his own stare. Maybe. Ben is pretty sure his has a lot more glare in it, but The Other One still manages to make him feel pinned and transparent, something searched and understood. “What were they sent for?”

“People are looking into what happened?” Ben counters. “The Fairy Godmother and Yen Sid? Those are big names. You swear they’re searching for my friends?”

“I do.”

Ben settles back on the bed, and resigns himself to a game of twenty questions.

The curiosity of his doppleganger doesn’t go as far as Ben worried it might. Soon enough The Other One is asking if he’ll let a doctor look him over, and Ben is agreeing because the idea of seeing a real doctor trumps the fear of a stranger poking at him.

And that’s where his slightly off-target deja vu from earlier finally makes sense.

“This place doesn’t look like a hospital,” He says, looking around the lavish room with its gleaming wood and almost offensively decorated bathroom. Granted, he’s only read about hospitals in books, or occasionally seen one on TV, but this blue-gold monstrosity is nothing like what he’s come to associate with medical offices.

“Ah, yes.” The Other One suddenly looks flustered. “It’s a private clinic that caters to a number of wealthy and prestigious clients, and they expect a… certain quality of service.”

Ben lets himself digest that for a second. “Luxury hospital rooms?”

The other at least has the decency to look uncomfortable. “Yes.”

The first time Ben got seriously injured in that alley near the tavern, he had to crawl his way home with blood caked in his hair, because there aren’t any hospitals on the Isle.

He clenches his jaw, and neither he nor The Other One speak at all while the doctor finishes doing whatever it is he’s doing and finally goes on his way. It takes a while -- the man eyes Ben strangely and keeps poking around places that aren’t his head or his arm, and Ben keeps having to snap at him. At one point the doctor asks if they can speak privately, and The Other One is halfway out of his seat when Ben snarls that they abso-fucking-lutely _cannot_ and unless there’s something life-threatening going on -- in which case he should spit it out -- then the doctor should patch up Ben’s current injuries and leave old scars the hell alone. The doctor looks like he wants to argue, but between Ben’s glare and The Other One’s calm stare he caves and does his goddamn job.

Less than an hour later Ben is “cleared” from the hospital, which has him feeling both relieved and retroactively anxious. He had been so distracted with the whole _alternate universe_ thing, he’d forgotten to wonder if he was a prisoner. Granted, he’s been a prisoner his entire life, but context matters.

The Other One hands him a pile of clothes -- the ones he’d been wearing when they set off the machine -- and Ben is grateful to change into something with actual substance and also that doesn’t gape in the back wide enough to leave his ass hanging out. The Other One leads the way out of the hospital, and with nothing else to do, Ben follows.

(He’s given a bottle of pills “for the pain” and can only assume they mean his wrist, which is barely sprained and only hurts when he moves it, and Ben feels something in him go hot and cold and furious, but it’s a strange, nebulous anger, one he can’t really place. It goes hand-in-hand with luxury hospital rooms, though. Ben pushes the feeling down to be looked at later.)

In the glaring sunlight outside the clinic there’s an absolutely ridiculous polished limo waiting for them, with a man in a uniform holding the door. He must think his shades hide his eyes more than they do, because he doesn’t even try to be subtle about staring at Ben. Ben stares right back as he climbs in with The Other One.

The man closes the door, slides himself into the driver’s seat, and takes off. The Other One pushes a button, and a screen slides up between them and him, almost giving the illusion of privacy. 

“Is that soundproof?” Ben asks.

The Other One says “No, I’m sorry.”

Ben doesn’t say anything else.

The windows are tinted, so at least the sunlight doesn’t stab his eyes quite so badly, but the world is still a shifting, non-Newtonian fluid around him, only occasionally solidifying into coherent shapes when both he and it are still. The moving car turns everything to an ever-changing abstract mosaic outside the window. Honestly, Ben is kind of surprised by how much that disappoints him. He didn’t think he cared that much about what Auradon looked like, but here he is in the capital city. He almost wants to go sightseeing. 

… Wanderlust. How ridiculous.

The things he thinks he might want to say are hard to get a hold of. He’d been assured the drugs would wear off soon -- they, like the pills he was given, were supposedly for pain. Ben would rather deal with an impacted tooth than _this_ \-- but for now they persist in making everything vague and fuzzy.

The limo pulls up in front of a castle that’s only barely familiar. The thorny, leggy vines that tangle all the way up the entire east side are kept tamed and neat here. The roses are actually blooming, big and red and beautiful. The stone is polished, all the windows crystal-clear. 

Ben’s family crest hangs over the door; two dark blue tapestries with what has to be real gold thread embroidered into the thick, rich fabric, swaying faintly in the breeze. A third tapestry, still in blue and gold, hangs between them, embroidered with the flag of the United Sovereignties of Auradon. (Ben ignores the rush of bitterness, and instead focuses on how weird it is to feel air moving over his skin even though he’s standing still. They don’t get much wind on the Isle.)

“Yen Sid and the Fairy Godmother should be here soon, if they aren’t already,” The Other One says as they walk in the doors (free of their line of locks and chains) and into a (spotless, gleaming, unbroken) entryway. Ben nods to show he heard, but can’t think of anything to say.

Huh, the carpet is red. He always thought it was brown.

They’ve barely taken two steps into the castle proper before they’re swarmed with people. Ben reaches reflexively for a knife that isn’t there. When he comes up empty-handed, he curls his fingers into a fist, tucks his injured hand against his chest. He’ll have to take off the glove-thing -- the doctor called it a _brace_ \-- as soon as he can. It’s like painting a target on a weak spot. 

Then he actually looks at some of the faces swarming towards him, and shock and disbelief has his hands faltering.

“Oh, poor dears,” A short, round woman with gray-white hair and wide, worried eyes comes bustling right up to him, reaching for him. She backs off when he jerks away, hands coming up again. Unfortunately that move has him backing right into a man with proportions like a flag pole, his hair pulled into a curly ponytail, who puts his hands gently on Ben’s shoulders before he can move away.

“Young master, you’re pale. Come, we’ll have dinner prepared in no time at all--”

“Master Ben, are you in any pain? I know how stubborn you can be about taking that sort of thing but you really mustn’t torment yourself!” Another man, shorter and more square, with a thin mustache and dark hair, dark eyes, a look on his face as stern and worried as his parents said it always was.

“The both of you could do for a spot of tea and some rest,” The woman says, keeping her distance, now. Ben takes the chance to twist out of the hands on him, scrambling to put breathing space between himself and these-- these-- these _people_.

(He had always sort of though they were just… embellishments, maybe. Additions to his parents’ story, to make the world seem less bleak, but -- holy _shit._ )

“Please,” The Other One says, stepping forward with that same calm, steady demeanor. “Give him space, all of you.”

The tall, thin man makes vague grabbing motions for Ben, looking torn. “But, young master, we were just --”

“I know you mean well,” The Other One reassures. “But please, both of us could use some rest, and I’m sure the three of you have other things you should be tending to.”

Chastised, all three servants take a half step back.

“Of course, your majesty,” Mrs. Potts says. (Mrs. Potts, holy crap. She’s real and she’s here and Ben isn’t sure he can blame the drugs for how fast his head is spinning.) “You two dears go relax, we’ll be here if you’ve a need for us.”

Cogsworth sort of stutters to a stop, then puffs his chest out, suddenly all business. “You heard him! Off with the lot of you, go on! Shoo! The young masters will be left alone!”

It’s then that Ben notices the other people -- maids and servants and doormen, all peeking around the door frames and into the hallway. The sudden feeling of being surrounded has anxiety rising like bile in his throat.

Lumierre needs to be practically dragged away by Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts. As the old ex-clock sends the servants creeping away, all of them dragging their feet, peering over their shoulders like Ben and The Other One are the most fascinating things they’ve ever seen, The Other One comes up beside Ben. He keeps a respectful distance between them, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his suit pants. 

“They’re very worried,” he says, somewhere between apologetic and fond. Is that really what Ben’s voice sounds like? “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said you fell out of the sky. A drop from that height -- it was terrifying, those first few moments. We were all afraid you’d gotten seriously hurt.”

Maybe Ben was wrong with his earlier assessment about the lack of differences between them, because there’s no way he’s ever looked at anyone with eyes like _that_ , wide and clear and with such naked, earnest concern, a little bit longing. The Other One looks like he needs a fucking hug. Ben is shocked to find himself almost tempted to offer one.

Instead of doing anything like that, he grunts. “If I fell from that high, how am I alive?”

The Other One’s cheeks go pink. “I, uh. Broke your fall.”

Ben narrows his eyes, suspicious. “I fell on top of you, didn’t I?”

Those clear green eyes skitter away and then back again. “It was more like I was lucky enough to be right under you,” he reassures. “I was able to react just in time, but I’m afraid my reflexes weren’t fast enough to catch you completely. I’m sorry.”

“You saw a body dive bombing you from the sky and just lunged for it?”

The Other One blinks, like he doesn't understand the question. “You were falling.”

Christ.

“Where are your parents?” Ben steamrollers forward, deciding to rip that band-aid off. His stomach clenches with anxiety, but the sooner this confrontation is dealt with, the better.

“They’re on their way. They were on a diplomatic vacation to Maldonia when you arrived, but of course they made arrangements to return home as soon as they heard what happened. They should be here tomorrow morning.” 

The Other One seems to think that should be reassuring, and why shouldn’t he? He’s the perfect, sunshine Prince his parents always wanted. Ben just bets The Other One has never gone to give his own mother a hug only to have her go stiff and shaking, hands raised to push him off like she expected him to do -- something awful, something disgusting. Something he would _never..._

Oh, there’s the resentment. Faced with this strange, Auradon-raised doppelganger, Ben knew it was only a matter of time.

He swallows it down like vomit. “Alright.”

The Other One blinks at him. Those calm, wide eyes are more unnerving than Ben realized. He tells himself to be proud of his own ability to freak people out, as opposed to feeling freaked out by himself. “Would you like me to show you to your room?” he asks.

The idea of being able to just go somewhere quiet and private to freak out about all of this sounds fucking divine. Ben nods gratefully. “Please.”

The layout of the castle is the same as the one Ben grew up in. They walk up three flights of stairs and down two winding hallways before they reach one of the larger guest rooms in the North Wing, in the same hallway Ben’s bedroom is in in his world. He wonders if it’s the same here. The Other One has barely gotten the door open before a young man is approaching them, eyeing Ben with naked fascination. He looks to be a few years older than Ben -- maybe even older than that, but his round, youthful face is hard to put an age to. He’s wearing a blue and yellow uniform, and smiling openly at them both.

Ben resigns himself to whatever this is. He really, really wishes he had a weapon though. Just in case.

“Master Ben… Bens,” the man greets. “Masters… Ben?” He purses his lips, then shrugs, dipping into a surprisingly low and formal-looking bow. “Masters Bens.”

The Other One’s lips tug into a smile. “Hey, Chip.”

Oh, holy shit.

Charlemagne Potts rights himself with a smile for the both of them, his straight back at odds with the too-familiar look on his face. Ben can’t tell if this guy is a friend or an employee. A quiet part of him is reminded of the dynamics between his gang, but he side steps that thought and the pang it sends through his chest. 

“Master Yen Sid and The Fairy Godmother have arrived,” He says, voice all business. “Would you like to meet them in your office, or one of the drawing rooms?”

Glancing at Ben in a way that really isn’t inconspicuous at all, The Other One barely thinks about it for more than a second before turning his attention back to Chip. “Have them sent up here,” he answers. “And don’t bother with bringing up anything to eat. This is a business meeting, and with any luck a short one.”

“My mom will insist on tea,” Chip says, glancing at Ben like he’s sharing a secret. When Ben only stares blankly at him, he leans back a little, a confused frown tugging his lips. 

The Other One chuckles good-naturedly. “Tea is fine.”

With a bow and a last look at Ben, Chip turns and walks back the way he came.

The Other One watches him leave, then claps his hands together and turns to Ben. “Shall we?” He even holds the door open. How chivalrous. 

Inside is a room Ben barely recognizes. It’s an empty dust trap in his world, since one major issue with only three people living in a castle is that castles are huge and there’s just nothing to do with most of the space. Here, it’s lavishly furnished and decorated, spotlessly clean and full of comfortable-looking furniture and electronics Ben couldn’t begin to name. There’s a massive vase of roses sitting on the desk, and a canopy around the bed. Couches and chairs sit around a coffee table in front of the windows. With the curtains wide open, letting in the afternoon sun, Ben can see that the glass isn’t just intact -- it’s polish-perfect.

The Other One takes a seat in one of the chairs around the table. Ben leans against the wall and quietly looks around the room. He knows the layout of the doors, windows, closet and bathroom as well as he knows every other nook and corner of his home, but this glitzed, ritzy version of the abandoned room he never has any reason to go into is throwing him off.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ben sees The Other One open his mouth, then close it again. Open it again.

Maybe someone up there really is looking out for him, because before he can be pulled into painfully awkward small talk with his Doppleganger, there’s a knock on the door. It swings open on silent hinges when The Other One calls a response, revealing Chip and two people who immediately send warning bells rushing down Ben’s spine.

The Fairy Godmother and Yen Sid are familiar for different reasons. The Fairy, Ben has seen on television; always wearing that saccharine smile and pretending to be some paragon of virtue, spoon feeding the youth of Auradon their bullshit propaganda about true love and happy endings. Ben has a pretty damn low opinion of her, but he hadn’t thought he held an active grudge -- his parents never mentioned her as one of the people who screwed them over, after all -- but seeing her in person makes him think about Dizzy, Darcy and Drew. Astoria and Anthony. Anastasia Tremaine, with her scarred hands.

Hm. Turns out, Ben fucking hates the cunt. His injury-induced headache isn’t happy about how hard he’s grinding his teeth.

Yen Sid, at least, is a less upsetting sight. The old man is kind of a wackjob in Ben’s world, but he’s good at his job and he’s been known to help kids out, on occasion. Ben himself owes the man a few favors. He would almost call him an ally if not for the fact that the old wizard is in Auradon’s pocket. 

In this world, he looks… pretty much exactly the same. Too-long hair and a too-long beard and a suit coat covered in weird celestial designs. In fact, the Yen Sid Ben knows wears the same coat -- the exact same coat, because this one is faded and kind of grungy looking, patched in a few places like it’s been worn out. This Yen Sid must have come straight from the Isle.

The Other One stands. “Good afternoon,” He greets, shaking Yen Sid’s hand and nodding at The Fairy Godmother. “Thank you both for coming on such short notice.”

“Oh, of course!” The Fairy Godmother coos. “We’ll do everything we can to help.”

That last bit is said to Ben, slow and over-enunciated, coupled with a too-sweet smile like she thinks she’s reassuring a toddler. Ben’s headache gets worse.

The adults and The Other One all sit, but Ben stays standing. He can see all three of them from here, and they’d have to go around or over the coffee table to get to him. He’s in position to dive behind the desk, if need be.

Mrs. Potts and Chip both come back with a service tray, and they cover the coffee table with cups and saucers and plates of little bite-sized snacks before politely seeing themselves out. (They both stare at Ben. He stares back.) The Other One rests his hands on the table while the wizard and the Fairy Godmother pour cream and sugar into their cups.

“I would ask if we know how to… solve this, fix this. How to send him home,” The Other One nods at Ben, so at least he isn’t talking about him like he isn’t here. “But in truth I’m not even sure what that process would entail, or even what questions need to be asked in order to find an answer. In this, I defer to the experience of the two of you.”

Yen Sid’s eyes have always kind of freaked Ben out. Now is no exception. He finds himself pinned under that blank stare and almost short circuits when the instinct to bare his fangs and snarl back meets the urge to stay quiet and not offend the guy who might be able to get him home.

… Then again, he did threaten to kill the nurse. Maybe it’s too late to try to play innocent.

“Temporal and spatial rifts are not so uncommon as to be unheard of,” The old wizard begins in his slow, creaky voice. “However, each recorded case has been an isolated incident, caused by unique factors, and as such, studying them is quite difficult. If we’re to get the young master back to his home dimension, we must first retrace his steps.”

There it is. Ben was afraid it would be something like that.

The Fairy Godmother turns her fake smile on him. “Ben, dear. Do you remember what you were doing before you woke up here?”

He almost straight-up tells her _no_. What if the Carlos of this timeline is building a similar machine? What if the dopplegangers of his friends are planning their own escape, and the King sends guards to stop them? But then, if he lies, will he be stuck here? How important is it really, that they know how he got here? Fuck it all, why isn’t anything ever easy.

“I built a machine that was supposed to disrupt the wavelength frequencies of the barrier and temporarily rip a hole in it.”

There’s a beat of shocked silence, then The Other One and The Fairy Godmother both speak up at the same time.

“The _barrier_ , dear?”

“That’s incredible!”

They both pause, glance at each other. The Other One graciously nods for her to go first.

“I… goodness, child. Why on earth would you do something like that?”

Welp. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“To escape the Isle of The Lost?” Ben drawls, raising an eyebrow. If she’s going to talk to him like he’s an infant, he’s going to talk like she’s stupid.

Weather it’s the tone of his voice or the words itself that give her pause, it’s hard to say. Either way it shocks her stupid for a second.

“That really is incredible,” The Other One takes the chance to say. “I don’t know much about mechanics, I don’t think I could ever do anything like that.”

Ben shifts nervously. “Mom says Grandpa was a brilliant inventor. There’s not much to do on the Isle, so. I learned. Something to keep me occupied.”

The Fairy Godmother frowns deeply. “The _Isle_ , I… Oh, dear. If someone here could do that --”

“I doubt it.” Ben sends a silent apology to the Snakes. “The smartest guy I know is Reza, Mozenrath’s son, but he’s not exactly big into magical metaphysics. Or mechanics, for that matter.”

Instead of looking appeased, The Fairy Godmother only frowns harder. Shit, _shit_ \--

“Regardless,” Yen Sid says smoothly, “The possibilities of this reality have little bearing on what we’re here to discuss.”

With a nod, The Fairy Godmother sits back in her chair. “Of course. Well, dear, given that description, it’s likely that this machine of yours worked a little too well,” She says, still with that grating, too-sweet voice. She even gestures while she talks, these slow, dramatic, stupid-ass hand-motions. “Instead of breaking the barrier like you’d intended, reality itself was, temporarily, torn. You fell through, and came here, to your other self.”

Because there’s absolutely no way Ben could have guessed that on his own.

“I wasn’t alone when I set the machine off. There were other people with me.”

The Fairy Godmother shakes her head. “You don’t have to worry about that. Your friends will be waiting for you back home.”

“You sure about that? They couldn’t be, I don’t know. On the Isle with their dopplegangers or something?”

“Oh, positive, dear. We’ve already searched extensively, there was only one --”

“And they couldn’t have fallen somewhere else?” He pushes. “They couldn’t be in some _different_ reality that isn’t this one or mine?”

The Fairy Godmother purses her lips at the interruption. “No, that wouldn’t be possible, dear.”

“What makes you so damn sure?!”

“Because,” Yen Sid finally speaks up. “You didn’t travel here through a natural portal, but an artificial tear caused by a great disruption. Even a single such tear causes a massive strain on reality. Multiple rifts, leading to multiple different timelines, would have so completely destabilized your universe that it would have collapsed in on itself. You would have ceased to exist, and we would not currently be having this conversation.”

Caught off guard, Ben can only blink at the old man. “... Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.”

“Your friends are safe, Ben,” The Fairy Godmother leans forward, “We’ll get you home as soon as possible.”

About that. “How soon is ‘as soon as possible’?” He turns to Yen Sid again, done with the Fairy Godmother’s sugarcoating.

The old wizard shakes his head solemnly. “Not as soon as you’d like, I’m sure. Returning you to your proper reality won’t be as simple as merely tearing open another portal. We need to be very careful in locating the original rift, to ensure that you are brought back home, and not simply into yet another timeline.”

Ben drags a hand through his hair and breathes. “So I’m stuck here?”

Yen Sid’s eyes are calm and sympathetic. Fairy Godmother looks constipated. “For the time being, yes.”

“I’m sorry,” The Other One finally speaks up. “I know it isn’t much, but I’ll do everything I can to ensure your comfort while you’re here.” He gestures kind of openly. “You’re welcome to take full reign of this room for now, if you’d like to. You won’t need to worry about finding shelter or food in an unfamiliar place. I know it doesn’t make up for you being trapped here, but I hope it’s at least a small relief.”

Ben eyes him critically. He’s kind of been pushing all the _your majesty_ crap to the backburner, dealing with the rest of this whole nightmare, but. “You’re High King? For real?”

The Other One blinks. “Yes,” he answers, simply.

… Ben has a really bad headache. He crosses the room to the only couch that isn’t in front of the table (it has a clear view of the door, and is only a quick dive away from the windows that lead out onto a large balcony. Ben knows these rooms, knows that it’s easier to climb down than it is to climb up from there.) and lets himself fall into it. “I’m taking a nap,” He declares. If this is his room for now, then all these people can get the hell out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches the Fairy Godmother get all up in her own asshole at being dismissed like that, but she doesn’t say anything. Wordlessly and with quiet nods, the two magic users stand and see themselves out. The Other One pauses at the door. “I hope you sleep well, Ben,” He says softly. He turns off the lights as he leaves.

A couple hours later, someone knocks at the door. Ben didn’t sleep for long -- a half hour, maybe -- before restlessness set in and drove him to his feet. He searched the room top to bottom, knowing none of his weapons would be there, but curious to know if any of the same hiding places even existed in this version of the castle. Some of them had already been there long before Ben needed to use them, likely designed to be hidden storage for riches or even just a servant’s closet. Sure enough, the panel by the fireplace swung open when he pushed the latch hidden by the grate, and the servant’s tunnel plunged off into the castle.

Ben had dragged over a heavy armchair and blocked the panel from inside before moving on.

There was one other possible entrance to the room -- the wall in the back of the closet buts up against the closet in the next room. On the Isle, most of the rooms in the castle are connected by carefully-hidden holes in the walls, making for easy escape in case the servants tunnels aren't an option. When Ben was a child, his parents used to play hide-and-seek with him, chasing him all through the castle, making sure he knew all the complicated, twisting routes and hiding spaces. When he got older, Ben added a few of his own.

In Auradon, there is no panel letting Ben crawl from one closet to the next. There’s no loose floorboard with a cache of knives in the back corner, either.

The rest of his searching turned up equally fruitless. The panel in the bathroom is the same, but it’s empty of whatever hidden treasure it once held and there aren't any bottles of Evie and Yzla’s poisons in its wake. The vanity mirror is in one piece, so Ben supposes it’s safe to assume that no one hid a few packages of homemade napalm behind the glass.

The curtains don’t have blades sewn into them. Neither do the pillows, or the sheets.

Useless, but in a strange way, almost comforting. Being High King would make his other self a prime target for political violence. If the rooms aren’t prepped and stockpiled, it might mean that The Other One has enough security measures in place to make it redundant.

… Or it might mean that, with all the villains on the isle, Auradon has grown lazy and arrogant. 

Ben is sitting on the bed, looking over his collection when the knock comes. The guest room is well stocked with intent to house important visitors -- meaning, full of crap, but almost none of it is useful to him. Still, he took the letter opener and two metal pens from the desk, the poker from the fireplace. The most useful thing he found was in the bathroom, while he was digging through the toiletries. Ben isn’t a chemist, so the creams and soaps and bath oils all meant nothing to him, but the shaving kit came complete with a few different types of razors -- including a classic straight razor.

Moving quickly, he tucks his gathered weapons around and under the bed, slips his straight razor into his pocket, and stands, making his way to the door.

The Other One is waiting when he opens it.

“Good afternoon,” He greets, quietly. “I hope I didn’t wake you up?”

Ben shrugs one shoulder. Seeing The Other One isn’t any less weird now than it was earlier. “No, I’ve been up for a bit.” The Other One has his arms loaded with a plate of food and some weird blue rectangle, both of which he holds up like an offering. “I thought you might be hungry. May I come in?”

“Why didn’t you just let yourself in?” Ben can’t help but ask. “This is your house.”

The Other One frowns at him in something that might be offense. “You’re a guest here. You should feel comfortable and safe.”

… This is weird. “Cool,” Ben says. He turns away from the door and gestures for The Other One to follow him. 

The tea crap is all still there, since no one came in to clean it after Ben kicked everybody out, which might mean the servants were willing to leave him the hell alone after all or might mean The Other One typically cleans up after himself. Ben has zero intention of waltzing through the castle, but he did gather everything and set it neatly back on the tray. He even ate a little bit, since he saw Yen Sid, The Fairy Godmother and The Other One all eating from the same trays, he figures the food is safe.

Still, he didn’t eat much, and whatever The Other One has on that plate smells amazing. 

The Other One takes a seat, sliding the plate towards Ben and opening the blue rectangle to show some kind of screen and a… oh, wait, that’s a keyboard. That’s a _laptop?_

Carlos will be so, so angry that Ben saw one that wasn’t broken before he got a chance to.

Ouch. Ben pushes down the stab of worry and tosses himself onto a chair across from The Other One. He can’t even begin to identify what’s one the plate. “What is this?”

“Um, beef ragout with mushrooms,” The Other One explains. His cheeks go pink. Ben knows he doesn’t blush so easy. “It’s my comfort food. So. I thought after today you could use a pick-me-up.”

Ben has no idea what a comfort food is. “... A pick-me-up is a drug.”

The Other One looks at him with shock. “Wh--it is not!”

“It is too,” Ben says. “It's moonshine and like three different types of trippy mushrooms.”

“No.” The Other One shakes his head. “A pick-me-up is… something that makes you feel more cheerful when you’ve had a rough day.”

“... I mean, yeah.”

The Other One stares at Ben. Ben stares at The Other One.

As one, they both snort. Their laugh is identical, enough so that it almost sounds like an echo, folded over itself.

“You’re messing with me,” The Other One accuses. 

Ben only shakes his head, grinning. “I swear I’m not.”

“Have you…”

“No, but I babysat two friends of mine while they did. It was pretty funny actually, they both just sat there touching each others’ faces and insisting they saw God. They tried to get me to agree to join their new religion.”

As The Other One sits back and shakes his head, looking bemused but entertained, it occurs to Ben that he’s sitting here, having a civil if not actively enjoyable conversation with an alternate version of himself. A version that was raised in Auradon and got himself instituted as High King.

… Ben’s life is so goddamn weird.

“Well, hallucinogenic alcohol aside,” The Other One says, turning back to his laptop. “I know you aren’t hoping to be here for very long -- I promise, we’ll do everything we can to send you home as soon as possible -- but Yen Sid and the Fairy Godmother both suspect it will take at least a week, and that’s an optimistic estimate. I know it doesn’t make up for the fact that you’re effectively trapped here, but I’ll do whatever I can to at least make your stay a comfortable one.”

He turns his laptop around to face Ben, showing a picture of… clothes. Lots of people wearing lots of clothes, with prices listed beneath them and a box to one side of the screen with words like Jackets and Loungewear, probably for sorting through all the clothes. “This store has a warehouse just outside of town, and they’ll deliver directly to the castle by tomorrow -- I already called and spoke with both the head of the company and the floor manager of the store location. Feel free to pick whatever you’d like.”

It takes Ben a second to process that. “You want me to buy clothes?”

He says it lightly, careful to keep any needless aggression out of his voice, just in case he got the wrong picture. The Other One blinks at him.

“I’d like you to be comfortable,” He says. “I can only speak from personal experience, but I would be uncomfortable wearing the same clothes for a week straight.”

“So you want me to buy clothes?”

“... Yes, I’d like for you to have clothes to wear while you’re here.”

Ben glances at the screen again. The Other One is wearing a suit that looks custom-made and about as flimsy as anything else Auradon dudes wear on tv. No spikes, no padding, barely any layers. The clothes on screen look more like what Ben is wearing, only nicer. Sturdy-looking leather jackets with studs on the shoulders, thick jeans with zippers crisscrossing the legs. “You won’t wear any of this stuff,” Ben says. It isn’t a question.

“I -- well, no,” The Other One frowns in confusion, maybe a little frustration, too. “But they’re not for me.”

“What are you gonna do with them when I leave?” While The Other One blinks, caught off guard by the question, Ben pushes forward. “You’re gonna buy clothes you won’t use to dress someone who won’t be here for long and then just… throw everything into the trash? You don’t think that’s wasteful?”

Even as he says it, Ben wonders if maybe he shouldn’t care. If it gets thrown away it’ll end up on the Isle, right? Maybe Ben should be encouraging The Other One to toss as much of everything as he possibly can. But, god the thought of someone being so needlessly excessive sets his teeth on edge.

Understanding lights The Other One’s eyes. “Oh,” He breathes. “I-- well, of course you can take it all with you,” He explains. “And anything you chose to leave behind would be donated to a clothing drive.”

“... Oh,” Ben says. It’s a better answer than he was expecting. A much better answer. But.

“We don’t know if I _can_ take anything with me,” He argues. “I’m basically a paradox, right? Who knows what going back with different things might do.”

The Other One looks thoughtful. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I’ll have to remember to ask about that.”

Ben shrugs one shoulder. The idea of new clothes is appealing, but it’s also overwhelming, and it makes him feel oddly nauseous, almost guilty, in a way he doesn’t think he can articulate. “Still feels frivolous.”

The Other One hums thoughtfully. “Would you be more comfortable sharing my clothes? We should be the same size, and I certainly have enough to share.”

Now it’s Ben’s turn to blink at him. “You okay with that?”

“Of course,” The Other One smiles. “I’m happy to do anything I can to make this easier for you.”

There’s a long, quiet moment where Ben searches his doppleganger’s face, and The Other One stares back at him, calm and open. There has to be some measure of distance in those eyes. There has to be some small amount of coldness, of dishonesty. Not that Ben thinks poorly of the guy, just -- no one is really this genuine. No one just _says_ things like that, but… there’s nothing. Nothing to make Ben think The Other One is acting more out of obligation than empathy, nothing to make his kindness seem performative.

Ben glances at the cooling plate of food. He hasn’t touched it, even though the smell is making his stomach cramp with want. He pushes it across the table. “You eat it first.”

If The Other One is put off or upset by his request (more of a demand, really) he doesn’t show it. He lifts the fork and carefully takes a bite out of everything on the plate, then goes further and reaches for the little tray of bread, the pitcher of water. Ben watches for any hesitation, any awkwardness. Nothing.

Satisfied, he nods at The Other One, takes the plate back from him, and tucks in.

He was right. It’s delicious.

It doesn’t take long for awkwardness to settle over them again, although that might be par for the course when you’re interacting with a version of yourself who’s so different in so many ways. 

The Other One seems content to wait quietly while Ben scarfs down his food; He starts off using the right fork and everything, back straight, but honestly the only time he ever uses his table manners is when he’s having a meal with his parents and that hasn’t happened in over a year, so he’s out of the habit. Part of him also wants to shock The Other One a little, just to see how Mr. King will react, so before long Ben is hunched over his plate, elbows on the table, using is thumb to help push the maximum amount of pasta onto the fork. He doesn’t chew with his mouth open -- he’s not Jay -- but he’s sure Auradon’s Golden Boy has never once eaten a meal with someone who shoveled food into their mouth like it could be taken from them at any moment.

Ben keeps waiting for some reaction, but it doesn’t come. The Other One makes empty small talk, filling the silence with comforting chatter mostly about how worried the castle staff and servants are. He awkwardly tip-toes around asking Ben any questions, but he isn’t rambling or being annoying. It’s just kind of hard to get into a conversation about the weather when Ben hasn’t ever really… experienced any.

Once his plate is mostly clean, Ben leans back in his chair and mops up stray puddles of sauce with a ripped-off piece of bread, savoring the feeling of a full belly a meal that tasted fresh. They’re in another awkward beat of silence, since Ben doesn’t really know how to make small talk and conversation keeps dying off. 

… Fuck it.

“Man, just ask me.”

“Pardon?” The Other One had been pouring himself a cup of cold tea, probably more to have something to do than because he actually wants it. 

Ben chews and swallows his bread before clarifying. “About the Isle. Just ask me. If I don’t wanna answer something I won’t.”

The Other One looks shocked, then sheepish. He nods. “I promise I don’t mean to be invasive, it’s just… there are so many differences between us. I can’t help but be curious.”

Well, fair enough. “... Mom and dad kept me hidden when I was younger. They were trying to keep me safe, but like… that’s a real small world for a kid, yanno? I started sneaking out when I was like ten, made some friends. Got a job running errands for a guy who turned out to be Gaston.”

The shock on The Other One’s face makes him snort. “Yeah, it was ugly. Turned out alright though. I earned some street cred with some of the gangs, made a name for myself. Some of my friends and I run a kind of unofficial event committee, we throw parties and put together festivals and stuff.”

Ben glosses over all of the uglier things, and by the look on The Other One’s face he knows it, but he’s honest enough about what his life is like. When he asks, The Other One responds in kind, giving a quick rundown of what he does in his free time. When he has free time. 

This, too, peters out after a while. There are just too many dead ends -- too many stories Ben can’t tell without mentioning someone getting stabbed or setting something on fire. The Other One likewise shies away from expensive banquets and frivolity. They chase their own tails around in circles and get nowhere.

As a last-ditch effort to keep from sinking into another round of awkward silence, Ben looks around the room they’re in -- polished and perfect and clearly used more than the version back home -- and mentions how weird it is to see the castle in full repair. “Most of it was destroyed when my parents first got the Isle, and the rest of it just kinda degraded over time. Three people does not a sufficient cleaning crew make.”

“Destroyed?” The Other One asks, fretful.

Really, though, what did he expect? “Yeah, I mean. The villains practically lined up down the block to storm the castle. Dad says they even tried to burn it down, but stone doesn’t burn, so it survived. Most of the stuff inside it got destroyed though.”

The Other One frowns deeply, probably imagining what that might look like. Ben wouldn’t recommend it.

“... Would you like to see the library?”

Ben snaps upright. “What?”

“My mother’s library.” The Other One smiles at him. “If most things in your world were burned, I’m assuming the books weren’t spared?”

“Not most of them, no.” Ben feels practically dazed. Holy crap, is he serious?

“Then, would you like to see it?”

The library isn’t what Ben expected. His mother always gushed about it, and he’d envisioned towering bookshelves and heaven-high ceilings, but somehow he hadn’t got the half. There were more books than he thought he could read in his whole lifetime, and lots of comfortable-looking reading nooks with plush chairs and couches to sit at. There are tables and shelves of paper and pens in case anyone needs to do research, there’s even a closet full of blankets to bundle up in and curl around a book. In front of the windows along the east wall, where Ben’s mother so often sits, is a small nest of pillows and cushions, right in the pool of afternoon sunlight.

“Mom’s spot?” He guesses.

The Other One beams at him. “She has the same favorite space?”

“Yeah.” Ben will have to put a nest together for her when he gets home. Her sitting on the floor never bothered him before, but now, seeing the comfortable fort she would have built for herself… it makes him kind of sad.

After that, things get very overwhelming very quickly. Ben is given full access to the library, and he basically spends the first ten minutes running up and down the isles, just trying to wrap his head around how many books there are. Biographies and scientific manuals and every genre of fiction, books on philosophy and poetry and history and on and on and on. It’s all enough to make him practically dizzy, he’s so overwhelmed. Where should he even start? There’s so much to choose from and all of it seems amazing.

Then his eyes fall on a spine that’s familiar, and he pulls the William Blake book off the shelf.

“Romantic poetry?” The Other One asks.

Ben raises his eyebrows at the surprise in his voice. “Not a fan?”

“I am, just -- for some reason I wasn’t expecting it from you, I’m sorry.”

Ben holds up the old, leather bound tome. “This is one of the few books that survived the ransacking. I’ve got most of it memorized by now, and dad used to recite some of it to me when I couldn’t sleep.”

 _“Sleep, sleep, beauty bright, dreaming o’er the joys of night._ I’d almost forgotten.”

“But you remembered mom’s favorite poem?”

The Other One laughs self-consciously. “In my defense, she recites Wanderlust practically every time we travel.”

“I can picture it.”

The rest of the afternoon passes in good spirits, and Ben is surprised by just how much fun he’s having. They hit another awkward patch once or twice, but surrounded by so many stories it’s easy to find something to talk about. They quote poetry back and forth at each other, and compare notes on some of the books they’ve both read. The Other One has a much longer list than Ben does, which is to be expected, but he doesn’t sneer at any of the titles Ben mentions. For all their differences, they hold similar opinions on authors, and honestly that would be enough for Ben, but after everything else today -- how courteous and genuine The Other One has been, how eager to help -- Ben actually finds himself almost… charmed by his other self.

Somehow, despite everything else that happened today, that’s one of the strangest parts.

They have dinner before the sun has even finished setting. Ben stifles a yawn for the third time in fifteen minutes and The Other One looks up from his book -- the William Blake book Ben had so lovingly carried to their table and read through before the siren call of all the new stories around him drew him away -- and gives Ben a small, familiar smile. “You can bring these books upstairs, if you’d like.”

“Hm?” Ben asks, using a finger to keep his place on the page before he meets The Other One’s eyes.

“The books. You can take them out of the library. We don’t have to stay down here if you’d rather retire to your room. I can have dinner sent up.”

Is Ben this thoughtful? He’ll have to up his game. “Sounds good.” As he stands to gather his armload of books, a thought occurs to him. “Would it be okay to eat in your room? I wanna see what it looks like here. I’m gonna guess we decorated differently.”

Always so accommodating. The Other One doesn’t even hesitate before he’s nodding. “Of course, whatever you’d like. Do you want help carrying anything?”

Ben hefts his armload of priceless treasures. “I got it,” He says. Then “Thanks, though.”

Seeing the bedroom he grew up in in Auradon’s light is even more jarring than seeing the library had been. In Ben’s world, there are weapons mounted on the walls and stubs of wax from leftover candles scattered all over the room.

In this world, the overhead lights actually work, and the empty, cavernous space is filled with game tables and curious pieces of mechanical equipment. The bed is larger and covered in plush-looking blankets and pillows, a massive television on one wall. There’s a large table taking up only part of the space, with a number of carved wood chairs around it.

It’s at the table The Other One sits, pulling out his phone -- another piece of technology Ben isn’t smart enough to really understand or appreciate -- and sending a “text” down to the kitchens to ask for dinner to be sent up. He’d already sent his footment away, which Ben was quietly grateful for. He’d have been on edge all evening knowing there were strangers outside the room.

(Strangers who’d looked at him with something almost like pity. On the Isle he’d have broken both their noses for thinking he was weak.)

The bathroom is somehow even more opulent than the bedroom itself. The massive tub is still there, but Ben would bet good money that there’s hot water for days. The shelves on the wall hold bottles and jars and baskets of all kinds of crap that reminds him of Evie’s beauty collection, or maybe the shelves at the Curl Up & Dye. The mirror on the wall is clean and polished.

It feels weird, somehow, looking at his own face after spending all day staring at The Other One. The differences between them feel more pronounced, but so do the similarities. Ben turns his head, watches his hair fall over his forehead and into his eyes. The scar on his jaw catches the light. Eyeliner from a day or two ago still clings to his messily to his lash line, darkening his stare. Ben isn’t wearing his fangs, but he still bares his teeth. They’re a little yellower than The Other One’s. 

An Uncanny Valley feeling creeps up on him. This shouldn’t be his face. He should be softer, gentler. There should be a smile tucked in the corner of his mouth. His gaze should be steady and calm and warm, not the sharp-eyed glare of a predator. 

Ben turns away from the mirror. He closes the bathroom door behind him as he leaves. 

The Other One is staring at something on his phone. As Ben comes up behind him he sees that it isn’t on or open or whatever. The Other One’s reflection is warped and darkened in the black screen.

He jumps a little when he notices Ben, and Ben can’t help but chuckle even as he holds his hands up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The Other One tucks his phone away sheepishly. “It’s fine. I was lost in thought. So, is it weird?”

“It’s so fucking weird, man.” Ben collapses into a chair across from The Other One. He gestures to the trophy case against one wall, full of blue ribbons and gold sculptures. “What the hell are any of these even for?”

The Other One’s explanation of Tourney, fencing, and his various academic accomplishments carries them through to dinner arriving, and then through dinner itself as Ben responds in kind, detailing some of the more family friendly stories of sparring matches with the gang or the dumb prank war he somehow let Miles and Ruby drag him into that led to the three of them almost being expelled from Dragon Hall after a misplaced paintbomb nearly incurred the wrath of Dr. Facilier. 

The only pause in their conversation comes when the food is set on the table, the weight of eyes on his back like a steel brace against Ben’s spine, drawing him upright and keeping him stiff and still until that weight was gone. As soon as they were alone again the light atmosphere returned to the room. Without prompting or fanfare, The Other One eats a bite of everything, making sure Ben can see him do so, then gives a quick rundown of the menu and a description of what everything is. Ben feels almost touched. 

They eat their meal in comfortable quiet. When The Other One glances guiltily at a stack of papers on his desk one time too many Ben kicks him gently under the table and tells him to go do his homework. The Other One explains that it’s actually paperwork, but that doesn’t really change anything. Ben flops down onto the way-too-comfortable bed and reads while The Other One works, and doesn’t realize until he’s several pages into The Picture Of Dorian Gray that it hadn’t even occurred to him to go back to his own room. 

It also doesn’t occur to him until he’s already nodding off that lying down on a mattress that’s practically trying to eat him immediately after filling his belly with warm food won’t help him fight off how goddamn tired he is. Today has been really fucking weird for him, and Ben’s brain would appreciate a chance to shut down and process everything. 

Just, maybe not in someone else’s bedroom, in a castle full of strange people, while almost all of his weapons are all the way down the hall.

Prying his eyes open, Ben forces himself upright, shaking his head sharply. He isn’t as surprised as he could have been to see The Other One peering at him with a slight dip between his eyebrows. “I’m sorry,” The Other One says, with zero fucking context. “I hadn’t realized I was keeping you awake. I appreciate your company, but you should get some sleep if you’re tired.”

… This guy.

“It’s fine,” Ben says. Then “Honestly, it’s nice to be able to just chill with someone. Things have been pretty high-energy for me lately, and then coming here…”

The Other One nods, standing from his desk. “I get it. I can’t remember the last time I could just exist in the presence of someone else.”

Ben tilts his head, surprised at that. They’ve spent all day damn near having to spray servants with water like misbehaving cats because they didn’t want to leave. “Seems like you have a whole castle full of people who’d be thrilled to hang out with you.”

He knows he’s said the wrong thing as soon as he says it. The Other One loses some of the easy looseness in his shoulders and spine. His walk across the room is suddenly just a little bit stiff, a little bit forced-casual.

“I’m very lucky,” He says, with just a little too much emotion. Ben wonders which one of them he’s trying to convince. “I have an excellent support system, there are so many people in my world who I can trust. I didn’t mean to imply… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give the wrong impression.”

Humming, Ben leans back on his elbows, examining The Other One while he pulls a pile of fabric out of his dresser. Something about the way he said that…

“But you can’t just relax with any of them,” Ben guesses, only it isn’t a guess, because something about the way The Other One is holding himself speaks to a part of Ben he hadn’t realized was so raw. “You love them, but you can’t be yourself around them.”

The Other One flinches. Bingo.

“I..” He stops, turns. Leans against his dresser. He holds the bundle of fabric over his chest like a shield. "My father has been grooming me for the throne my entire life. Sometimes it felt like he was more focused on teaching me than..." He blows away that train of thought with a puff of breath. "It worked, anyway. Out of all my peers -- many of whom are, in my opinion, more suited to the position, I... I was crowned High King. And. I know they only want what’s best for me. They see potential in me that I’m not sure I can reach, and it’s… I don’t know how to be the man they see me as. I don’t think anything I do could live up to those expectations. But… I _want_ to. I want to be a better person, a worthy king. So I… pretend. Or try to pretend.” He shrugs. “It’s exhausting. Sometimes interacting with my family and friends feels less like conversation and more like a performance, but I can’t stomach the idea of letting everyone down. I’d rather pretend to be something I’m not than to have them all see me as… less.”

To himself, so quietly Ben would have missed it if he couldn't read lips, The Other One mutters "Not that it makes a difference, most of the time."

Before Ben even has a chance to respond, The Other One is turning to face him with wide, worried eyes, an apology written in the dip of his brow, the curve of his lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to unload all of that on you. I know how trivial my problems must sound to you.” He crosses to the bed and holds out the bundle of fabric. “I don’t know if you wear pajamas to bed, but you’re more than welcome to borrow these, if you’d like. Or you can go through my drawers and take something. It’s up to you.”

Ben accepts the clothing with a grateful nod. The fabric feels slippery-smooth against his fingers. He doesn’t think he’s ever touched something this soft in his life, and he absently finds himself holding a sleeve or a pant leg or something up to his face to rub against his cheek, silently marveling.

It gives him something else to focus on when he says “My mom thinks I’m gonna rape her.”

The Other One freezes, corpse-still and wide-eyed. 

Ben shrugs. “I wish I could say she used to think it, but to be honest I don’t think she ever really got over it. There were some people saying some very disgusting things about her, and when I found out I… dealt with it. I made sure everyone knew that I had a no-tolerance policy about making sexual comments about my mom. Seemed pretty straightforward to me, but then this rumor started up. I’m pretty sure Gaston and his lackeys were behind it, but I can’t prove it. Suddenly half the isle thinks I have an Oedipus complex. I was having a pretty rough time at home, fighting with my dad a lot. We got physical with each other a couple times and that just fed the rumor. People started saying I was jealous, that I wanted her for myself. Sick... sick shit. I started getting into more fights because people were saying more shit, coming home all beat up and bloody. One day it got back to her.”

The pajamas smell like something Ben can’t place. It’s probably the soap or something, but it’s nice. Clean, without any of the chemical stink he’s used to clinging to his clothes. Suddenly he really wants to get changed into something that isn’t from the Isle Of The Lost, and he rides that wave of impulse to start tugging at his shirt. 

“Anyway, she freaked out about it. I wouldn’t say we had a fight really, but… things haven’t ever really been the same between us. Any of us. If I hadn’t been getting into so many fights, I don’t think she ever would have even considered it, but I was already a more violent person than she wanted me to be. So. I get putting on an act around the people you care about. I get… not wanting them to misunderstand or take things the wrong way. It really fucking sucks having to lie about stuff like that, but if I could go back, just… pretend my dad wasn’t pissing me off all the time, lie about the fights I was getting into… I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

When Ben emerges from his layers of shirts, it’s to find The Other One staring at him with open heartbreak on his face. Ben doesn’t blame him. The thing with his mom was ugly, but the worst part was knowing that she didn’t feel safe around him, that he was hurting her just by existing nearby. Thinking of any version of his mother feeling so helpless and frightened makes his throat ache, his eyes sting. He doesn’t cry, he’s an Isle kid, but damn if it doesn’t get close sometimes.

Instead of any of the things Ben is expecting -- prying questions about his life or his relationship with his parents, biting anger that he let the situation get so out of hand in the first place, disappointment that he isn’t a better son, that he didn’t protect her better -- what The Other One finally ends up saying is “Can I hug you?”

Ben pauses, halfway through tugging off one of his boots. “What?”

The Other One doesn’t move. His arms are outstretched just a bit, open and non-threatening, leaving it up to Ben to make a move. “Can I hug you? Please?”

Ben shrugs noncommittally. The movement feels jerky and awkward, even to him. He stubbornly turns his attention back to his boots. “Sure. If you want to.”

Arms close around his shoulders. A chin rests on top of his head. The Other One is warm, and the fabric of his shirt is smooth against the sides of Ben’s neck. He’s wearing cologne, something clean and kind of forest-y smelling, something Ben can’t place. It’s nice. It’s really, really nice.

“I’m sorry,” The Other One whispers into his hair. “I can’t imagine what that must have felt like. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Woah, hey.” Ben wraps his arms around his doppelganger's waist. “I’m alright. What are you apologizing for? You didn’t do anything.”

The Other One shakes his head. “Maybe not, but I’m still sorry you had to go through that.”

Ben hums, idly rubbing a hand over his other self’s back. It’s nice, just holding someone like this. Ben has always been a pretty cuddly guy, but he’s also always been worried about sending the wrong message, or crossing a line. Right now, he doesn’t have to worry about that. This is _him_ in his arms. They can do this until they’re both satisfied.

When The Other One finally pulls away, Ben feels his absence keenly. The places where The Other One's body heat sank into his skin feel cold and abandoned without familiar arms around him. Neither of them says a word as Ben finishes pulling off his boots and sets them aside. His socks follow, and he stands as The Other One sits on the bed, fiddling with his belt buckle. 

He’s wrapping his belt in his hands to set neatly by his shoes when he feels the prickle of eyes on him. Looking up, he catches The Other One staring just as his doppleganger ducks his head, looking sad and guilty. He dodges Ben’s gaze, refusing to let their eyes lock. “I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

It takes Ben a second to figure out what must have happened. Then he raises a hand to his chest, fingertips grazing the tip of the scar near his collarbone, suddenly self-conscious. 

“Hey man, don’t worry about it. I know they’re ugly.”

“What?” The Other One blinks. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I just… they look painful.”

Ben shrugs, then stops. The Other One has been tiptoeing around asking him about the Isle all day, and they already started sharing, so…

“If you want to know, I’ll tell you. I don’t mind. It isn’t exactly a deep dark secret.” 

The Other One is predictably quick to reassure him. “You don’t have to,” He says, instead of answering the question.

Shaking his head, Ben drops his arms and stands up tall. He has a pretty gnarly collection of scars all over him. Some he’s proud of, some he isn’t. His back has some of the worst of them. The jagged line that stretches from the tip of his shoulder to about the middle of his back, warped and stretched with age, is the hardest to miss. It’s shiny and bubbled, laying on top of his skin, but there are jagged lines down his chest and stomach, stretching from collarbone to navel, that are hard to ignore from any angle. They lay across his skin like fault lines.

“Remember when I told you I used to work for Gaston? Neither of us knew who the other was. My parents kept me as sheltered as they could, he didn’t know they had a child. He figured it out before I did, actually. I had started to suspect, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it besides keep my head down and my nose clean. Only, when I went to work one night… He was waiting for me.” 

Ben doesn’t give him all of the nitty gritty details, because neither of them needs that, but he doesn’t edit himself like he has been all day. What happened happened. That’s life, for him.

After he finishes the Gaston story, he moves on to the tooth marks all over his left shoulder, and the story of how he got Gizelle working for him. Scars on his fingers and palms, scars on his arms, scars on his chest. Some of the stories are stupid or funny, like the line around his ankle from a tripwire he triggered when he, Jay, Jace and Miles got outrageously drunk on a “boys night” and managed to wander into Harley Sinclaire’s territory. Some of the scars don’t have stories Ben can remember.

He ends up stripping off his jeans and sitting back on the bed, leg outstretched to show The Other One the shard of metal still buried under his skin of his calf. He’s absently rubbing his thumb over the bump, reassuring his other self that it doesn’t hurt, when his doppelganger reaches over and slowly traces a gentle fingertip over the shrapnel. 

He gives Ben time to tell him to fuck off, but what’s the harm? Ben lets him touch, even going so far as to lay his hand on The Other One’s and push it down a bit. “See? Doesn’t hurt. None of them really do, anymore. They look nasty, but I’m lucky enough to not really have any deep tissue damage or really any bone problems either.”

The Other One frowns, looking unconvinced. He reaches up to run a ticklish-soft fingertip over a scar on Ben’s stomach that for some reason always looks red and inflamed. “That looks like it hurts.”

Ben takes a breath. “Okay, so that one…”

More stories, more scars. The Other One starts to idly touch whatever mark Ben is talking about. Honestly, most of them are tiny or faded. After he started trading with Evie, Ben was able to patch himself up much more efficiently, and her scar creams work wonders. It’s only a handful of the older ones that really stand out, but his doppelganger still traces each and every one with gentle fingertips, like any harder might tear Ben’s skin and leave him bleeding all over again.

It’s nice, actually, to have someone touch him just for the sake of touching him. It’s been a while since anyone did that for him.

Eventually Ben runs out of stories that are worth telling. The mood in the room is… not heavy, but it’s raw. Charged. That was a lot of trauma and also a lifetime of stupid stunts and kooky shenanigans Ben just dumped in his other self’s lap. He’s leaning back on his hands, watching as The Other One draws little circles around a small, pale scar on his knee, when he catches sight of something peeping out from under his doppelganger's sleeve. 

Curious, he pushes up the fabric, almost surprised to see a little silver scar on the back of The Other One’s wrist. Ben traces over it, and meets The Other One’s eyes with a smile. “Your turn.”

“Oh,” His other self says. “Um, it’s from a riding accident. I fell off my horse and the watch I was wearing cut into my skin. None of my stories are really worth listening to, I’m afraid. My scars are all pretty trivial compared to yours.”

Ben flaps a hand at him. “Doesn’t matter, your turn.”

With a good-natured sigh, The Other One stands and pulls off his shirt.

He certainly has less scars than Ben, and his are all small and faint, but Ben nonetheless touches each and every one of them, listens raptly to the stories of how they got there, on this body so like his own. Sports injuries, mostly. Tourney or horseback riding, falling off a pier at the beach, getting convinced by a friend that practicing his fencing without a shirt on was a great way to show off for his girlfriend and instead ending up in the nurse’s office. Some were just from sheer clumsiness though, which Ben can’t even poke fun at him for. He forgets where he put his own limbs sometimes, too, when he’s distracted with other things.

Ben can admit that the scars are in fact pretty trivial, but the stories are entertaining enough, and he’s delighted to find that his other self is as ticklish as he is, but with none of the self-control. As Ben returns the favor in tracing his fingertips over every scar, his doppelganger starts to squirm, and the mischief in Ben’s Isle-raised soul has him faking obliviousness as he also traces feather-soft over freckles and veins, the soft bend of an elbow, the delicate spaces between fingers.

The Other One runs out of stories to tell pretty quickly, but admits to having a few more scars hidden away, and hell, Ben took _his_ pants off. It’s only fair.

Standing and awkwardly removing his slacks has the light catching off The Other One’s red face. His blush climbs down his neck and chest, just like Ben’s does, blushing with his whole body. Ben thinks it’s a good look for the other him. It suits him.

He has a collection of faint, pale little scars on his knees from childhood roughhousing, falling off bikes and horses and, apparently, a bookshelf. Most of them are so flat and faded with age that Ben wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t looking for them. Only one of the little scratch-thin scars can be felt under Ben’s fingertips, a line on the inside of his other self’s knee that he got when he broke his leg falling from the previously-mentioned bookshelf. 

There’s a tiny scar on his left ankle that he shyly admits is from trying to shave his legs on a dare, and a scar on his calf from falling in the garden. “You fall a lot,” Ben says, playing connect-the-dots, tracing from one scar to the next up and down The Other One’s legs. 

“I was a clumsy child.” He laughs lightly, and when Ben peers at him with a raised eyebrow he ducks his head, his blush glowing deeper. “Okay, so I’m still pretty clumsy sometimes.”

“Can’t judge.” Ben shrugs. “So, that it for you?”

The Other One hesitates. “Oh, um. I do have one more, I think. My friend Lonnie stabbed me with a pencil once when we were younger.” His face is very, very pink. It reminds Ben of when Evie blushes, and all he wants to do is tease and flirt with her to watch the flush climb its way to the tips of her ears. The shock of that surprises him so much he doesn’t even make fun of his other self for the pencil thing.

The Other One is already red to the ears, and down his neck, but it’s crawling slowly down his chest and Ben doesn’t think he’s ever blushed so hard in his life. He wants to know how far it can go.

His other self tugs shyly at the leg of his boxers, exposing a few more inches of pale thigh. Sure enough, there’s a tiny black mark from a pencil puncture, stark against his skin, darker than any of his freckles. Ben traces a line from the mark on his other self’s knee up to that little black dot, feeling the skin under his hand prickle with goosebumps. From cold? From the barely-there tickle of Ben’s touch? Maybe.

The Other One isn’t looking at him. He’s staring at his own hands where they’re fisted in the blankets, taking slow, deep breaths while Ben draws idle patterns over the sensitive skin on his thighs. Ben could stop right now, put on the pajamas his other self so thoughtfully provided, let him do the same. He could go back to the guest room and spend the night staring at the ceiling and dreading the meeting with the alternate version of his parents tomorrow. He could stop _right now_.

But damn it all, Ben _wants_ him -- this sweetest, softest him. Wants to know if all the things people have said about how fun he is to play with are true, wants to be gentle in a way he can't actually be with himself. He inches his fingers up past that tiny black scar, following the curve of muscle to trace over the inside of his other self’s thigh.

The Other One gasps, sharp and shocked, and stares at Ben’s hand like he isn’t sure if it’s real. “You’re getting turned on,” Ben says, softer than he means to. The Other One’s head snaps up, his eyes stunned wide. Caught red-handed. 

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean t--”

“It’s okay,” Ben cuts over him. “I am, too.”

There it is. The Other One stares at him. Ben stares back. “If you don’t want to…” He lets his words trail off. 

He’s surprised by how surely The Other One shakes his head. “No, I just… This is weird, right?”

“Is it?” By Auradon standards, probably. They’re all about True Love and waiting until marriage and shit, right? But Ben is Isle-raised, and if it feels good and they both want it, why the hell shouldn’t they? “Wouldn’t it just be like… glorified masturbation? We’re the same.”

He sees that thought take root in The Other One’s head, sees his eyes widen, his lips part. Surprise and want and an almost childish excitement that has heat burning in Ben’s gut. Fuck, he’s a virgin, isn’t he? Ben has _so much_ to teach him.

“We’re the same,” His other self murmurs, testing out the words. He looks at Ben’s lips at the same moment Ben looks at his. Neither of them move for the space of a heartbeat. Ben can feel the drawn-taut caution in The Other One’s body, the tension in the muscles under his hand. Well, Ben is the one who started all this, and he’s clearly the more experienced of the two.

He tangles his fingers in hair so like his own and guides their mouths together. Identical lips, identical sighs. Ben wonders if they’ll have different tastes, if their different lives have led them to different wants and passions, but when he bites his other self’s lip with sharp, bruising teeth, yanks on a fistful of his hair, fucks his tongue into his mouth and _takes_ , The Other One sighs and gasps and clutches at his hips, tilts his head into Ben’s hand and surrenders. It makes Ben laugh, their first sloppy kiss breaking when he does, huffing laughter into the overheated space between them.

“What?” The Other One asks, smiling softly. It isn’t the expression Ben was expecting. The heat is there, but it’s soft around the edges, not the animal urge to rut and fuck that Ben can feel boiling between his hips. Helplessly, he smiles back.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Their next kiss lasts longer, burns hotter. Ben shifts onto his knees and brings The Other One with him until they’re pressed chest-to-chest on the bed, clutching at each other. One careful hand threads through his hair and tugs way harder than Ben was expecting him to, leaving him breathless for a moment. He wants his other self to follow it up with teeth in his throat, a hand around his wrists, wants to wrestle and be pinned or do the pinning himself. Instead the hand in his hair lets him go, and he’s pulled into a much softer kiss. The Other One breathes against his lips like an apology.

Virgin, right. Ben should probably go easy on him.

Or, Ben could lay him out and make him see God.

“I know you,” He growls against bruised lips. His hands drag greedily over soft, barely-marked skin until his fingers can catch and pull and The Other One’s nipples. “I know this body. I know exactly what you need.” 

His Other Self makes a sound somewhere between pleasure and surprise, a choked _"oh"_ when Ben plays with his chest. Jay likes to grope his pecs and call them tits when he’s feeling antagonistic, and usually Ben swats and spits at him, but right now he can’t help but almost agree.

“How far do you want to take this, Ben?” He asks his shaking self. The wide-eyed, blushing, untouched boy that is him.

Maybe Ben needs to try harder to remember that. No matter how sweet and virginal, no matter how flustered and caught off guard, this boy is him. Ben has never been one to pussyfoot around taking what he wants, when it’s right there being offered to him.

With all the clumsy boldness Ben should have expected, The Other One drags him in for another kiss and tears at both of their underwear, reaching for bare skin. Their teeth clack together sharply. It hurts, and they both like it. Laughing, Ben helps him remove the last of their clothes, and they collapse onto the bed, hands wandering, mapping out the bodies they both know so well. Searching for differences and finding similarities. 

Ben rolls until he’s on top. His hands catch wrists, his knees bracket straining thighs. Their cocks slot together so fucking perfectly, hot hard skin against hot hard skin. Ben pins The Other One down and grinds their bodies together. They aren’t quite perfect mirrors -- Ben is a little bit bulkier in some places and a little bit thinner in others, the awkward rawboned strength that most isle kids have, while his other self has had the luxury of vanity workouts. But those are such superficial differences, they barely even matter. Everything else is so close to the same that Ben imagines they could line up like reflections, mouth-to-mouth, chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip, every point of contact radiating heat and pleasure.

The Other One seems all too happy to be pinned. He tries to free his legs, but Ben uses his body to keep him from squirming and ruts against him like an animal until sweat and precum collects between them and Ben can slide his dick over clenching abs without the drag of dry skin making him hiss. 

“Have you ever been fingered?” He asks his shaking self. The trembling moan he gets in response is answer enough.

Ben passes both of his other self’s wrists to one hand and cups his face with the other. His lips are bruised and swollen, his eyes _burning._ Is this what Ben looks like? Is he this beautiful? “Open up,” He orders. The Other One rushes to comply, his lips parting, pink tongue lolling. It’s easy to be shameless when the only one around to judge you is yourself, and shameless is a good word to describe it when his other self wraps pink lips around Ben’s fingers and moans, his eyes fluttering closed. Ben rocks his fingers, a slow in and out like he’s already fucking him.

The Other One makes a despairing noise at the loss when Ben takes his fingers away, just like Ben would have. He’s more hesitant in opening his legs, but the way he grabs his pillow when Ben lets his wrists go is so familiar it gives Ben Deja Vu. The sound he makes when Ben slides a hand between his thighs and runs his slick fingers over his hole echoes in his head like a recording of himself. The way he arches his spine, the way his toes curl. All of it, the same.

And so is his reaction to that perfect spot inside of him being touched for the first time. Ben’s sweeter self gasps out a ragged moan, throws his head against the pillow. His eyes and mouth open in shock, his body moving on it’s own, thrusting down against Ben’s fingers and then up into empty air, hard cock bouncing against his stomach. Looking for something that feels good, looking for something to breed.

 _“Fuck,”_ The Other One says. It’s the first time Ben has heard him swear, the suddenness of it has him laughing. “Fuck, _fuck_ do that again.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Ben drawls.

The Other One is more honest than Ben ever is, writhing and moaning, fucking himself against Ben’s fingers. That blush climbs all the way down his chest, until practically all of him is red against the blue of his sheets. Red lips, red nipples, red cock leaking against his stomach. Ben’s own dick is throbbing in sympathy with every twitch and shiver, every cracking groan that tears itself out of his sweeter self’s throat. He enjoys himself so loudly, takes the pleasure with so much open joy where Ben would curl defensively around the good feelings, waiting for them to be taken away.

… Young, that’s how he looks. He looks young. Ben feels a thousand years old.

“Little one,” Ben calls him, and it feels _right._ He pulls his fingers out, reveling in the shaking whine he gets in response. “Can you roll over for me?”

His other self takes a second to gather his composure. When he opens his eyes there’s a worried glint in them. He glances at his own dick, and then at Ben’s, uncertain. “I…”

“Too much?” Ben asks.

“Maybe a little?” The Other One shifts. “I’m not sure I’m ready to, um. Go all the way.”

He curls in on himself a little, like he’s expecting to be laughed at, all flushed and nervous and uncertain. It’s cute as hell, and Ben wants to make him forget about it, wants to make him moan and squirm again. 

“Don’t worry about it. We don’t have to fuck if you don’t want to, but will you roll over for me anyway? I want to eat you out.”

The Other One makes a sound not unlike a broken lawnmower. “You -- you want to _what?”_

Openly laughing at his shocked face, Ben leans in to drop a kiss on his forehead. “I want to fuck you with my tongue. Come on, you’ll like it.”

He watches the war on The Other One’s face, but Ben knows what his sweeter self will choose. It’s the same choice he made, the first time someone offered. They’ve always been too curious for their own good.

Sure enough, his sweeter self rolls over, shyly offering himself. Ben guides him by the hips, poses and presents until he’s satisfied with their position. He doesn’t usually get to check out his own ass, this is quite the opportunity. 

“Bon appetit,” Ben drawls. The scandalized sound his other self makes cuts off with a startled yelp when Ben leans in to drag his tongue over his hole. 

_“Oh,”_ The Other One gasps, clutching at the pillows and arching up, his arms already shaking. “Oh my god, oh _fuck_ that’s so good.”

Ben hums, drags a hand up his back to press against the nape of his neck. His sweeter self resists for a second, but only a second. Then he’s dropping easily to his elbows, face buried in his pillows. Ben can see his arms moving, hands sliding under himself. Tugging on his own nipples while Ben eats him out, damn that’s adorable. 

Ben throws himself into the task at hand, moaning against spit-slick skin. He pulls away to leave rough bites over the curve of his sweeter self’s thighs and ass and The Other One flinches and whines at the pain. When he tries to shift again, reaching shaking fingers for his poor, neglected cock, Ben stops him.

The look of absolute betrayal his other self shoots over his shoulder would be funny if he didn’t look so genuinely wrecked, wild-eyed, his hair plastered to his face with sweat and his lips almost bleeding from where he’d bitten them. Ben kisses his bruised thighs in silent apology.

“Want to learn something new about yourself?”

The Other One lets out a bubble of slightly-hysterical laughter. The hand Ben captured is unresistant in his grip, but the other is still moving, plucking and playing with a nipple like he can’t bring himself to stop. “I think that ship has sailed.”

Well, fair enough. “Let me teach you one more thing, then.” His sweeter self doesn’t fight when Ben guides his hand back to his pillow, but he does groan like he’s gotten stabbed, leading Ben to kiss his neck and shoulders. When he reaches the other’s ear, he whispers “You don’t need it.”

What answers him is a sharp, shaking gasp. The Other One peers over his shoulder at Ben in surprise. “What?”

“You don’t need it,” Ben repeats, sliding his fingers back into that stretched hole and watching The Other One’s eyes flutter closed. “I can make you come without touching your cock.”

“Oh, my _god_.” Shaking, The Other One turns back into his pillows, burying his face into the fabric. Ben can’t blame him. He was overwhelmed too, his first time.

It'll only get more overwhelming from here, because Ben is very good at what he does. The first one comes easy enough, him fucking his sweeter self on fingers and tongue until he feels muscles start to shake and clench, The Other One's moaning changing pitch. He knows his own tells like breathing, and pulls away just before the wave crests and breaks, leaving his doppelganger teetering deliriously on the edge for a moment before he collapses into the pillows, gasping for breath.

"Why..?" He croaks, confused and betrayed and so goddamn cute Ben wants to take a bite out of him. 

"Shhh," Ben soothes, and starts again.

It doesn’t take long before his sweeter self is shaking and sobbing, tearing at the sheets with trembling hands, looking for something to stabilize himself against the knife’s edge of pleasure tearing through him. Ben works him into a frenzy, pulls back by centimeters, gentles his touch so slowly until his other self is crying out breathlessly, gripping at the headboard, the blankets, his own hair, clawing for something to grant him any control over the need, need, _need._ It's wet work, sweat gathering in the creases of his knees and elbows, between his thighs, the small of his back, a puddle of precum collecting on the sheets below him. Soon Ben's whole mouth tastes like salt.

His doppelganger begs, after the second time Ben drags him up only to leave him hanging on that glorious edge. Begs with the writhe and arch of his body, with the swaying of his hips and the offering of his twitching hole, his leaking cock hanging heavy between his thighs. Begs with his words where he sobs them into his pillows, babbling _please, please, please let me come I need it please_ in between heaving breaths. He begs, but he doesn’t try to touch himself again. He wants to know if Ben was telling the truth. Ben wants to make damn sure it’s worth the wait.

The third time, Ben doesn’t edge him. Muscles clench iron-hard under his hands, shaking moans break and give way to high, keening desperation. He presses his sore mouth against one of the tooth-shaped bruises he dug into his sweeter self’s thighs, drags his fingers over the swollen, throbbing place that has electric-sharp crackles of ecstasy shredding his other self into pretty pieces, and watches the pleasure _rip him open._

He stripes the sheets with come, and Ben notes distantly that it’s more than he would have had to give; The Other One doesn’t get off as often as he does. He doesn’t have time to really analyze it though, because as soon as his other self has finished howling and writhing through what’s probably the best orgasm he’s ever had, he’s collapsing into a shaking, whimpering heap on the bed, and Ben is moving without thought to lay on top of him, weighing him down.

He holds his other self steady through the aftershocks, peppering kisses over his neck and shoulders until the shaking sounds peter off into slowing breaths. Ben’s dick isn’t happy about being so thoroughly ignored, but his softer self sighs in contentment once he’s got his breathing under control, and he raises one slightly-shaky hand to rest on Ben’s arm.

Ben gives him another few minutes to collect himself before he speaks. “How you feeling, little one?”

The Other One groans tiredly against his pillows. “Like I got hit by a truck,” he slurs. “A sexy truck.”

Ben hums thoughtfully against one sweat-sticky shoulder. “Have you ever even seen a truck? Like, up close?”

“... I got hit by a sexy limo.”

“That sounds more like it.”

When Ben finally lifts himself up, The Other One sluggishly pushes himself up on one arm and clumsily falls onto his back, sprawling out with his hair in his eyes and a smile tugging at his swollen lips.

“What’s got you so smug?” Ben asks.

The other hums. “I just can’t believe I didn’t know any of that.” He slides a hand up his own stomach to thumb at one of his nipples, his gaze clouding over as he drags his fingers over the red, abused bud. Ben ducks to catch the other between his teeth, smirking when The Other One whines.

“Are you more surprised by how sensitive your nipples are, how much you like pain, or that you can have prostate orgasms?”

“Yes.”

Ben laughs. “Fair enough.”

They fall into a comfortable silence for a bit, The Other One basking in his afterglow (and probably the exhaustion of being edged twice his very first time) and Ben more than happy to let him. When his sweeter self finally stirs, it’s to push himself up until he’s sitting and drag a hand through his hair. He eyes Ben’s dick with open curiosity. His tongue drags across his lips absently, like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.

Ben raises an eyebrow. “Do you want something, little one?”

The Other One’s blush had been fading before, but the nickname has pink staining his cheeks again. He opens his mouth, glances at Ben’s face. Presses his lips together. “I, uh. I’m sorry, I don’t know if I can...” He huffs, frustrated. “How do you just -- say things? I’ve never been so honest.”

Leaning back on his heels, Ben eyes The Other One quietly. He can imagine how the castle staff -- hell, how the whole damn world -- might react to their king being so blunt. 

… Come to think of it, he doesn’t think his other self has come right out and asked for a single thing at all today. He stepped in when Ben needed something, but he hasn’t made any selfish requests. Granted, it’s only been one day, but Ben would bet that not asking for things he wants is par for the course with The Other One.

Ben has some thoughts about that, but what he ends up saying is “Will it be easier if I offer it to you?”

The Other One blinks at him. “Offer... “ He shakes his head. “You don’t have to do that. Especially if it’s something you aren’t comfortable with.”

Ben snorts. “Of course. It’s such a burden that someone is so eager to suck my dick.”

He knows he got it right when The Other One draws in a shaking breath. Seeing the almost guilty look on the face of his other self has Ben setting aside the sarcasm for now. He says “Little one… Ben, come here,” and draws him into a kiss. The Other One clutches at his shoulders.

“Anything you want,” Ben promises him. “You can do anything, okay? I want you to.”

His other self doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t want this if you don’t. You forcing yourself into something wouldn’t give me any enjoyment.”

“Why are you so sure I wouldn’t want it?”

The Other One rubs self-consciously at the back of his own neck. “You seemed pretty comfortable being in control just now.”

Ben hums. The Other One rolled his shoulder when he said it, like he was trying to work out a kink in his back. That’s a tell Ben spent the last couple years learning to hide. “That isn’t really why, though. Is it.”

Caught, his other self looks up at him with guilt all over his face. When he sees Ben’s stern frown, he gives in, dropping his head with a sigh to stare at the bed between them. His hand lifts like it’s on autopilot to touch the jagged lines across Ben’s chest. “I’ve never been pinned down by someone who wanted to hurt me before,” He says. “I don’t have any reason to be upset by it.”

Ben catches his hand, brings it to his lips. Presses a kiss to knuckles that have never been split to the bone; knuckles that have probably never been split at all. He can’t imagine his other self throwing a punch, and trying to makes him feel a sudden wave of protectiveness. “Do you want to hurt me?”

The Other One’s head snaps up like he can’t believe what he just heard. “Of course not!” He says, sharp and offended even as he turns his hand to cup Ben’s cheek reassuringly. “Of course I don’t.”

“Then I don’t have any reason to be upset by it,” Ben parrots. 

He watches his other self get ready to argue, and cuts him off by leaning in for a kiss. They could be at this all damn night if they don’t get past it now. “If you do something I don’t like, I’ll tell you.” The Other One doesn’t look convinced, so Ben huffs in frustration, rolling his eyes. “If you do something I really don’t like, I’ll punch your lights out.”

His sweeter self tries and fails to fight down a smile, his lips twitching before he gives up and lets his face pull into an amused expression that suits him much more than guilt and hesitation do. His voice is still uncertain when he says “Promise?”

Ben leans in to press their foreheads together. “I swear. You won’t hurt me.”

For a moment, that’s all there is. The Other One tangles their fingers together, and they both close their eyes. The space between them fills with their shared breath. Ben’s ears echo with their shared heartbeat.

Then, slowly, The Other One moves. He holds Ben’s hands instead of his wrists, and clumsily shifts them until Ben is the one leaning up against the pillows. Awkwardly, he leans past Ben and flips the pillow he’d been drooling into over so that Ben doesn’t have to lie in the wet spot, then guides Ben onto his back. He doesn’t push or demand, he leads Ben to reach up and take hold of the headboard, checking his face every few seconds.

It’s nice, actually. Ben had thought it might feel awkward or clumsy to submit to someone so much less experienced than he is, but it’s really, really nice. He can’t remember the last time someone treated him like he was fragile. Instead of making him feel patronized or condescended to like it would coming from anyone else, Ben just feels… taken care of. Like patching himself up after a bad fight, the careful twitching of fingers to check if something is broken. The hesitation of _will this hurt?_ in every slow, gentle movement.

That’s all this is. Just Ben looking after himself.

The thread of tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding leaves him, letting him sink into the mattress, going limp under the weight of his other self. It catches them both by surprise, and The Other One pauses like he’s worried he messed up. Ben smiles up at him comfortingly and ignores the ache in his wrist when he tightens his grip on the headboard. “See? I totally trust you.”

The Other One grins at him like a bonfire.

The first kiss to his lips is tender, but steady. They’ve done that enough tonight for his sweeter self to feel some confidence in what he’s doing. He doesn’t hold Ben down, he just holds him, cupping his face and drawing him into a sweet, slow kiss that leaves him more breathless than he’s expecting it to. Kissing is pretty rare on the isle, and kissing like _that_ … Ben finds himself arching up, chasing after his sweeter self when he pulls away. He’s tempted to grab him by the hair and drag him down again, but his hands were put on the headboard, and he’ll keep them there.

His hopeful following earns him more kisses, so he’s satisfied. This time The Other One traces up his arms and to his hands, resting on top of them where they clutch at the decorative wooden bars. “Don’t let go,” his sweeter self reminds him. When he pulls away again, Ben lets him.

The kiss to his neck is a bit more hesitant, but Ben tilts his head back and sighs his encouragement. Lips and tongue drag heated lines over his throat, his jaw. Careful teeth fit around the shell of his ear and nip at him, a sharp ache that has Ben gasping. The Other One takes his time, a slow exploration of Ben’s body that drags seconds into minutes until time feels slowed down and sticky-thick, sweet like honey with the easy, aimless pleasure Ben is being lavished with.

With infinite care and patience, his sweeter self works bruises into his chest, drags hungry teeth over his nipples until Ben is aching, his grip on the headboard white-knuckle tight. He’s louder than he usually would be, a constant stream of praise and reassurance because he knows himself well enough to know it’s what he wants to hear. “That’s so good, little one, right there,” and “A little harder -- yeah, there you go,” and “You’re so eager, so sweet.” It has his other self squirming under all the praise, almost distracting him from his careful mapping of Ben’s body.

Almost.

It hurts more than Ben was expecting it to, aching lines all over his chest and down to his hips from biting teeth. He can feel his heartbeat throbbing through his whole body, it’s so fucking good. The Other One skips right over his cock and works bruises into his thighs, and then lower, dragging his hot, tearing mouth down Ben’s legs all the way to the ankle. It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to realize his sweeter self is tracing the scars, covering them with new marks. When he catches on to what’s happening, Ben has to turn his face into the pillow and gasp. It’s hard to breathe around the sudden tension between his ribs. Like someone reached down inside him and grabbed a handful of his guts and started pulling. 

When his sweeter self switches legs, his lips so gentle and teeth so cruel against that stupid tripwire line, Ben can’t fight down the sharp, hissing breath or the way he twitches, shying away from the touch. His other self freezes, peering up at him with so much worry on his face. “Too much?” He asks. Then “You promised you’d tell me.” Sudden and stern.

Ben grits his teeth. “... a little,” He forces out, even though he’s fucking fine. When all he gets in reply is a nod, he tries to force the aggression aside. The Other One isn’t trying to humiliate him, and It’s pointless to be angry at himself.

Granted, that's never fucking stopped him before.

Before Ben can be dragged too far down that road, warm breath ghosts over his fever-hot skin, and he snaps back to the here and now like someone just tazed him. A clumsy, inexperienced tongue pokes curiously at the head of his cock, lapping at the precum leaking across his belly, and Ben has to remind himself that he promised he’d keep his hands where they are.

His sweeter self glances up through his lashes, so earnest and eager to please, so worried he isn’t doing it right. The last of Ben’s earlier frustration evaporates. “You’re doing so well,” He praises, watching the eyes of his other self light up. “Take your time.”

When a hand closes around him, holding him steady so his sweeter self can take the first few inches into his mouth, Ben gasps out loud. He’s never been touched by anyone who didn’t have calluses all over their hands, the smooth glide of skin-on-skin takes him by surprise. It isn’t _better_ necessarily, but it’s new, like everything else about this is new. Every part of his other self is soft against Ben’s body; his fever-hot tongue, his manicured hands. It’s almost overwhelming.

Those soft hands press down on Ben’s hips, hold him still, and that’s all the warning he gets before his other self is trying to take as much of Ben’s cock as he can. He gags, his throat fluttering around the head of Ben’s dick, but stubbornly refuses to pull back. Drool drips lewdly past his lips, onto Ben’s skin, slicking everything between them

“Easy,” Ben murmurs, thighs straining with the urge to fuck into that wet, hot mouth. “Take it easy.”

The answering moan he gets in reply is equal parts defiant and delirious. His other self digs into Ben’s hips with his fingernails, fighting his own body, trying to take more. His eyes, dark and hungry, pupils blown-out-wide, stare up at Ben in open lust.

It’s more reflex than anything else when Ben’s hips rock up. His sweeter self chokes and sputters, pulling off to catch his breath. He eyes Ben sulkily as he wipes his chin with the back of his hand. “You did that on purpose.”

Ben only grins, unrepentant. He didn’t, but that’s an unimportant detail. “I told you to go slow.”

His doppelganger frowns like he wants to be upset, but can’t pull it off. He ends up smiling instead, his whole face softening as he looks down at Ben. His eyes flick towards the headboard, double-checking that Ben is still holding the bars, before he bends to take his cock again, moaning softly as he filled.

Ben moans, too, an echo shared between them. His sweeter self is more careful this time, but he’s also less hesitant, happily fucking his own mouth while Ben drags hissing breaths in between his teeth and tries not to move again. Fuck but it’s not easy when his other self is so eager and so goddamn cute, damn near purring around Ben’s dick like it’s candy.

Again, the thought, is this what Ben is like? He knows he likes to use his mouth, knows he always feels smug and spoiled in equal measure when he gets a chance to show off how good he is with his tongue. But is this what people see, when they look at him? Those bright eyes, those gentle hands. Does Ben possess anything even close to that level of beauty, or has the isle ripped it out of him? He suspects it’s probably the latter.

When The Other One pulls off again, breathing heavy, he raises his fingers to his own lips, then pauses. His eyes find Ben’s and ask a silent question.

In answer, Ben spreads his legs. “Go slow,” He reminds him. His sweeter self kisses a scar on his knee.

“Please don’t let me hurt you,” He murmurs. The words hit Ben like a knee to the gut.

Luckily he doesn’t have to answer, because his other self wastes no time in wetting his fingers and slipping his hand between Ben’s legs. Then he’s dragging clumsy fingertips across Ben’s hole and swallowing down his cock again and Ben kind of loses track of the details after that.

There are careful fingers pressing so gently inside of him, a hungry mouth lapping greedily at every drop of pleasure that leaks out of Ben’s throbbing cock, a voice that’s his and a voice that’s also his echoing shaking moans back and forth to each other. There are hazel-green eyes that are almost his but so much clearer, so much brighter, peering up at him through sex-messed bangs like Ben is something fragile that needs constant maintenance. Something worth watching over, something worth being gentle with.

There are polished wooden bars under his hands when he clutches for something to hold himself steady, and there’s an ache in his wrist that he barely even feels over the pleasure burning every other fucking inch of him, and when his other self -- his sweet self, his soft self, his gentle, lovely, untainted self -- pulls away to catch his breath, panting wetly, and leans up to press a kiss to Ben’s scarred chest while his fingers move _just right_ \--!

Ben _burns._

When he comes back to himself, he’s heavy. Weighed down by The Other One lying on top of him. It’s a comforting pressure, keeping Ben grounded. He turns his head to nuzzle soft hair.

“Damn, little one,” He says, when he can breathe enough to talk. His sweeter self huffs a quiet laugh against Ben’s shoulder.

“Is that just my name now?” He doesn’t sound upset by the prospect.

Smiling, Ben presses a kiss to the nearest patch of skin he can reach. “We can’t both be Ben. That’d be confusing.”

“We can be Ben squared.”

“I’ll be Alpha Ben and you can be Beta Ben.”

“Maybe I wanted to be Alpha Ben.”

“You couldn’t care less.”

His other self hums, nuzzling into Ben’s shoulder. “No, I couldn’t.”

By the time they peel off of each other they’re both sticky and gross with half-dried body fluids, both of them wincing at their own filthiness. “These sheets are ruined,” The Other One despairs. He doesn’t seem inclined to get up any time soon, though. 

Ben swats him sharply on the ass, grinning when he yelps and jerks upright, hands flying back to protect himself. “Do you have rags in the bathroom?” He asks.

“Yes…” His other self says cautiously, still rubbing his sore butt. Ben has half a mind to haul him over his knee and give him a real spanking, but before he can give that idea any serious thought he finds himself yawning. His body reminds him that he actually was fucking tired at the start of all of this, and he’s fucking exhausted now.

“Cool,” Ben says instead of starting off round two by beating his sweeter self blue and black from ass to knee. There’s always tomorrow.

Instead he stands and ambles to the bathroom, digs around until he finds the shelf full of weird, fancy embroidered hand towels, and wets two in the sink. One gets soap, the other just gets water, and Ben makes quick work of scrubbing himself down before walking back into the other room.

His other self has tossed aside the ruined sheet and arranged the pillows so that the drooly ones are on the bottom. He takes the rags when they’re handed to him, wiping himself down much in the same way Ben did. Ben finally gets around to putting on those soft-as-sin pajamas. 

The Other One is yawning, too, by the time he’s clean and pawing through his dresser again. Ben checks the clock on the nightstand. It’s early by his standards, but he doesn’t know how late his other self usually stays up until. 

“Hey,” Ben says, reaching out to catch him by the arm as he goes to walk past. “Are you going to bed?”

His doppelganger blinks at him in surprise. He checks the clock in the same way Ben had, looking surprised at the number display. “Oh, um. I still have some paperwork to finish. I should take advantage of how early it still is.”

He doesn’t exactly sound happy about that prospect. Ben doesn’t know how important that paperwork is, so he doesn’t say anything. Instead he pulls his sweeter self in for a kiss, gently bumps their foreheads together. “Goodnight, little one,” He says.

Before he can step away, his other self is grabbing him back. He tangles his fingers in Ben’s hair and just holds him for a second, face buried against his neck. Ben is more than happy to hug him back.

Wordlessly, his sweeter self pulls away and walks Ben to the door. “Goodnight, Ben,” He says.

Ben shuts the door on his way out, ignores the awkward stares of the footmen on guard, and makes his way down the dim hallway and back to the guest room.

If, two hours later, he gets tired of tossing and turning aimlessly, slips back into the hall, and knocks on the door to The Other One’s room -- and if, when The Other One answers, he looks like he’s just been given every treasure in the world to see Ben standing there, well. Ben is a new, crazy, unpredictable environment, with only himself to lean on.

And if Ben doesn’t take the couch like he asked to when the guards were in earshot but instead climbs onto the bed, and if The Other One abandons his paperwork barely a minute later to join him on that bed with his arms outstretched, and _if_ Ben burrows into those arms like a child seeking comfort, all too eager to let himself be held closely enough the two could practically be conjoined twins, well...

That’s between Ben and himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Was this hugely self-indulgent? Yes.
> 
> Was this just supposed to be fun, campy porn of the best boy in some really cute selfcest? Yes.
> 
> Did it get completely out of hand and end up dragging up a whole bunch of trauma that both of these boys could really use some help with? Also yes.
> 
> The real question is: Should I give in to the urge to write another chapter or two of these babies interacting and reaffirming each other (and also having cute sex?) You decide! Let me know if you wanna see more of this ridiculousness.


End file.
